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China ire over India border visit

BBC News
Tuesday, 13 October 2009 18:26 UK

China has strongly criticised a visit by Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to the disputed north-east Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh.

The Chinese foreign ministry accused Mr Singh of ignoring Beijing's concerns.  China claims large areas of Arunachal Pradesh which lies on the Himalayan border it shares with India. Delhi said the remarks "do not help" border talks.  Analysts say China is angry over a trip planned by exiled Tibetan leader the Dalai Lama to the state in November.

Mr Singh visited Arunachal Pradesh earlier this month ahead of state assembly polls which were held on Tuesday. In January 2008 he made the first prime ministerial visit to the mountainous state in more than 10 years.  China and India fought a brief border war in 1962 - partly over Arunachal Pradesh - and the frontier has yet to be settled despite several rounds of talks.

'Boundary question'

"We demand the Indian side address China's serious concerns and not trigger disturbances in the disputed region so as to facilitate the healthy development of China-India relations," Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu said in a statement posted on the ministry's web site.  The Indian foreign ministry responded by saying that Arunachal Pradesh is an "integral and inalienable part of India".  It said that China's criticisms "did not help the process of ongoing negotiations between the two governments on the boundary question".    more ...

Russia and China sign trade deals

BBC News
Tuesday, 13 October 2009 11:27 UK

China and Russia have signed trade agreements worth $3.5bn (£2.2bn).

About 40 contracts were signed by Russian and Chinese businessmen and officials, Russian deputy prime minister Alexander Zhukov said.

The head of Russia's Gazprom, Alexei Miller, said a preliminary deal had also been struck on supplying 70bn cubic metres a year of gas to China.  The agreements came during the second day of a visit to Beijing by Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.  Russia is keen to bolster its economy, which President Dmitry Medvedev has said will decline by 7.5% in 2009.  Beijing and Moscow call it a "strategic partnership", but in reality it is a lot more complex and fraught with tension.  The trade relationship could be described as "you dig it up, we buy it". Russia   is rich in resources: oil, gas, metals and timber. China has a huge appetite.  But Russian nervousness about China can be seen in their energy deals. Russia needs to invest billions to build new pipelines to send its oil and gas to China. Beijing has the money, but Moscow will not allow Chinese companies to build and own these pipelines. Instead, China is having to lend Russia the money.

It is all about history and demographics. Big chunks of the Russian Far East were once part of the Chinese empire and there is deep concern in Russia that a rich, powerful and over-populated China will one day want it back.  It is keen to sell more oil and gas to China - the world's second-biggest energy user.  Mr Zhukov told reporters that the deals included two $500m loans from Chinese banks to Russian financial institutions.  One was from the China Development Bank to its Russian counterpart Vnesheconombank, while the other was from the Agricultural Bank of China to Russia's state-run VTB bank.  He said other deals included investments by Chinese firms in Russian construction facilities, but gave no details.    more ...

What Has NOT Changed in China?

An Analysis of the Chinese One-Party Dictatorship

The Epoch Times
October 12, 2009
By Professor Li Dong Oct 12, 2009

Exactly 60 years ago, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) came to power after a bloody civil war and established the “People’s Republic” of China.  The CCP was able to win the civil war because most Chinese people were disappointed with the legitimate Guomindang government, a corrupt and undemocratic regime, and the CCP made wonderful promises.  Two of them were especially appealing: The first is the promise of land reform, made to the peasantry who made up 0ver 80% of the population. The second is the promise of democracy, made particularly to the better educated urban people.

What happened to both of these promises?

Land Reform and Famine

Immediately after the CCP gained control of the mainland, it introduced a nation-wide land reform. This was a violent campaign which killed millions of country gentry and annihilated the entire landowning class. Anyway, peasants got their land, right? Wrong. Hardly had the land reform been concluded, when the CCP launched its Soviet-styled agricultural collectivization drive.

Peasants were forced to give up their newly-acquired land to agricultural co-operatives and people’s communes, and thus began their 30-year socialist ordeal; during 1959-1962 at least 36 million peasants died of starvation in a nation-wide famine. This worst famine in human history was caused entirely by Mao Zedong’s lunatic economic adventurism called the Great Leap Forward. It is therefore quite legitimate to contend that the promise of “Land to the tiller” was a big lie and the CCP had betrayed Chinese peasantry.

Then, what of the promise of democracy?

Promise of Democracy a Lie

A study of China’s history after 1949 shows it was another big lie, with the CCP betraying the Chinese people, who had believed and backed the Party in its drawn-out bid for power. It was interesting to note that when the Government of the People’s Republic of China was first formed in 1949, it did include some nominal figureheads who were not CCP members.  Three out of the country’s six vice premiers were non-CCP members. All were middle-of-roaders and fellow travelers. But each of them vanished without fanfare, until 1956 when every vice premier was CCP members; even nominal figureheads were no longer tolerated.

Today a superficial scan of China’s Governance arrangements would show that China has what we call the super structure of a modern state – it has a legislature, an executive branch and even a judiciary system, similar to the United States.  Let us, however, look a little more closely at each of these.   more ...

China vows to stand by isolated North Korea

Reuters
Mon Oct 5, 2009 5:46pm EDT
By Chris Buckley

BEIJING (Reuters) - China pledged to strengthen bonds with isolated North Korea, nudging it to improve its economy, while reports of Indian and South Korean swoops on North Korean shipping underscored strains behind a recent easing of tension.

The renewed courting between the two communist neighbors came in messages between Chinese President Hu Jintao and North Korea's top leader, Kim Jong-il, who on Sunday hugged Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao at the start of a visit intended to bolster bilateral relations.

The messages marked 60 years since the countries established formal ties on October 6, 1949, and did not mention of the North's nuclear weapons program, instead stressing their focus on shoring up ties.

"History demonstrates that developing China-North Korea relations is in keeping with the fundamental interests and shared wishes of both countries' people," said the congratulatory message from China, issued by the official Xinhua news agency. "It also benefits protecting regional peace and stability."

In a message to China, Kim Jong-il and other North Korean leaders said relations would "constantly consolidate and develop," Xinhua reported.

The relationship between the world's third-biggest economy and its impoverished, isolated neighbor sets apart Beijing's approach to Pyongyang from the harder line long favoured by Washington, Tokyo and other regional capitals.   more ...

Mass Arrests of Falun Gong Prior to Communist Anniversary

Epoch Times
Oct 4, 2009

The Chinese communist regime not only tightened security before its 60th anniversary celebration, but also arrested of Falun Gong practitioners around the country.

At least 70 cases of arbitrary arrest and detention were recorded by the mainland China section of Minghui.net, a Falun Gong Web site which receives extensive first-hand reports of persecution cases.

Public Security Bureaus in many areas searched the homes of many practitioners, taking personal belongings and detaining many in labor camps. In one case, a three-year-old girl was detained along with her mother. The wave of arrests reported occurred between Sept. 23 and Sept. 28.

Ms. Li, a Falun Gong practitioner in Hebei Province, told The Epoch Times, "With the National Day approaching, the local National Security Bureau offices warned practitioners not to leave their residences. Some of them were arrested and sent to brainwashing classes or labor camps.”

Falun Gong, a spiritual practice based on the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance, has been persecuted by the Chinese regime since 1999. Prior to then-leader Jiang Zemin’s order to “eradicate” Falun Gong, many of the Party elite practiced it, along with an estimated 100 million Chinese in the mainland.

“Many people have been arrested, tortured, and even killed since the persecution started in 1999,” said Ms. Li.

Thus far, 3,308 cases of practitioners persecuted to death in custody have been verified, yet rights groups estimate the number to be much higher as the regime does not release any figures, nor allow investigators into the country.

Theresa Chu, chief executive of the Human Rights Law Foundation Asia Branch, said, "The Communist Party is most afraid of Falun Gong practitioners.”   more ...

Independent Chinese TV Station Blocked From Broadcasting

Taiwan investigates interruption of station’s signal

Epoch Times
Oct 4, 2009
By Wu Jinxi

TAIPEI—The broadcast-signal disruption of an independent Chinese satellite TV station has caught the attention of lawmakers and the National Communications Commission (NCC) in Taiwan. The disruption began during the celebration of the Chinese communist regime’s 60th year in power, a politically sensitive time for the regime.

The signal of the New Tang Dynasty Television Asia Pacific (NTDTV AP) has been interrupted for 17 days to date. The interruptions block popular programs, such as the "Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party" and the news commentary programs, which focus on issues that the Chinese communist regime wants hidden.

According to NTDTV AP, intermittent signal disruption started at 1:30 p.m. on Sept. 17. Daily interference has occurred during the times of primary news broadcasting from 7 p.m. to 12 a.m., with longer interruptions noted on some days.

NTDTV AP’s signal is broadcast through the Chunghwa Telecom’s (CHT) International Program Transmission Service, which is partially owned by the Taiwanese government. The low-frequency transmission of the satellite covers Taiwan and nearly four-fifths of mainland China.   more ...

NK leader greets Chinese premier

BBC News
4 October 2009 14:40 UK

North Korean leader Kim Jong-il has made a rare appearance to greet visiting Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, ahead of talks on nuclear issues.  During his three-day visit, Mr Wen is expected to urge the North to resume international negotiations.  North Korea withdrew from six-party talks in April and conducted a nuclear test in May, raising regional tensions. 

After arriving in Pyongyang on Sunday, Mr Wen began talks with Prime Minister Kim Yong-il.  It was wrongly reported earlier that he had held discussions with the North Korean leader himself - who only came to the airport to greet Mr Wen.  Correspondents say Mr Kim has been suffering from a serious illness and rarely greets visiting dignitaries, so this appearance is an indication of how seriously North Korea takes its relationship with China.

'Resolve problems'

China's foreign minister and Beijing's delegate to the six-party talks are accompanying Mr Wen on what state media called the "goodwill visit".  Video footage of Mr Wen's arrival showed a welcome ceremony and him leaving the airport in a limousine motorcade. 

China hosts the six-party talks, which also involve the US, South Korea, Japan and Russia.  It is North Korea's biggest trading partner and holds the greatest sway over the communist regime - which has in recent weeks indicated it could resume stalled talks.    more ...

The Four Worst Political Movements of The Chinese Communist Party

Epoch Times
By Charlotte Cuthbertson
Epoch Times Staff Oct 1, 2009

Following is a summary of four of the most brutal revolutions and persecutions spanning the 60 years since the Chinese Communist Party seized power.

Great Leap Forward & Great Famine (1958—1962):

DEATH TOLL: 40 million

Millions starved to death during the Great Famine that resulted from the Great Leap Forward. (NTDTV)
The Great Leap Forward was a campaign by the CCP that required everyone in China to become involved in steel-making, forcing farmers to leave their crops. It was a major economic disaster that led to the Great Famine, a nationwide famine that cost more than 40 million lives, and was explained officially as a “Three-Year Natural Disaster.”

Mr. Jiang, from Xie County, Shanxi Province, said: “Many small villages were wiped out where the farmers’ whole family starved to death,” he said. “People ate anything. There were deaths in every family. Dead bodies were everywhere. Finally, people started eating humans, including living ones and relatives.”

When the peasants were so hungry as to snatch cereals from the grain depots, the Communist Party ordered shooting at the crowd to suppress the looting and labeled those killed as “counter-revolutionary elements.”
Cultural Revolution (1966-1976):

DEATH TOLL: 7.73 million

Arbitrary executions were commonplace during the Cultural Revolution. (Boxun.com)
The Cultural Revolution was the most frenzied leftist period in China. Killing became a competitive way to exhibit one's revolutionary standing, so the slaughter of "class enemies" was extremely cruel and brutal. Mao's aim was to recapture power after the failure of the "Great Leap Forward." It was an unprecedented nationwide exercise of eliminating human nature.   more ...

Row over China Kashmir visa move

BBC News, Srinagar
Thursday, 1 October 2009 14:50 UK
By Altaf Hussain

A member of India's governing Congress party in Indian-administered Kashmir has condemned moves by China to issue separate visas for Kashmiri people.  He said the decision by China to issue hand-written visas on loose sheets of paper was "not acceptable".  China has given no explanation for its move, but many in Srinagar say it is because Beijing sees Kashmir as disputed territory.  The divided region is claimed in its entirety by both India and Pakistan. 

'Not valid'

So far only about 100 people have been affected by the new procedures.  The move - introduced in May - follows recent reports in the Indian media that Chinese troops have made incursions into the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir in the Ladakh region.    more ...

Internet Control Grips China Before Anniversary

Epoch Times
Sep 29, 2009
By Xia Yuwei

While quietly surfing the web, Mr. Wang, a network administrator in Beijing, suddenly got a call warning him to “mind his behavior” on the Internet. It was the Internet Monitoring Department of the Beijing Public Security Bureau checking in.

For the weeks prior to China’s National Day celebration, and under the pretext of “maintaining stability,” Internet controls in China have intensified.

Mr. Wang shared with The Epoch Times his expertise on the recent tactics adopted by the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to control the Internet. The recent Internet blockade, he said, was accomplished through the cooperation of many Internet service providers in mainland China.

One Internet company recently notified its subscribers, “Beginning today, any Bulletin Board System containing illegal information, once found, will be shut down immediately. They will not reopen prior to Oct. 1, 2009.”

Through software like UltraSurf and FreeGate, developed by the Global Internet Freedom Consortium (GIF), many netizens had been able to surf freely prior to the recent intensification of the Internet firewall. Now even the efficacy of these programs has been seriously affected.

“In 2003, anti-censorship software products were not widely available, so Internet monitoring departments concentrated on actively blocking those anti-censorship Web sites," Mr. Wang said. "Once they found the sensitive IP addresses, they would first block the user’s IP, shutting off his or her access to the Internet. After two or three days, the blockage would be removed.

“Then the IP address would be recorded and sent to the relevant service provider who would search for the user’s information," he said. "A determination would then be made regarding further action, including monitoring phone lines, interrogation, arrest, etc.”

Now, anti-censorship products are widely circulated in China, and the regime lacks the manpower to continue that approach. “So now I guess they’ve started to hire people specifically to record the IP addresses of overseas proxy sites. For example, although DynaWeb’s (GIF) IP address changes continually, all the addresses have to be published on the Web site. Then these published IP addresses are targeted,” he said.   more ..

China 60 years on: From Mao to today

CNN News
September 30, 2009
By Jaime FlorCruz

Jaime FlorCruz, a Filipino national, has lived and worked in China since 1971. He has spent time working on a farm in Hunan province and in a fishing corporation in Shandong province, and studied Chinese history at Peking University. He served as correspondent and Beijing bureau chief of TIME Magazine and is currently CNN's Beijing bureau chief.

BEIJING, China (CNN) -- Soon after I first came to visit China in the autumn of 1971, I saw a contingent of militia soldiers doing marching drills in Tiananmen Square. I was told they were rehearsing for the annual National Day parade on October 1, which people eagerly awaited.
A sign marks the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China.

Weeks later, however, I was informed that the civilian and military parade had been cancelled in the spirit of "simple-living and hard struggle," as Chairman Mao decreed. The real reason: Lin Biao, then defense minister and Mao's anointed successor, had reportedly died in a plane crash while attempting to flee the country after a failed coup attempt.

China's achievements in the last 60 years have come in zigs and zags. The best place to look back at what China went through in the past six decades is Tiananmen, or the Gate of Heavenly Peace. Behind it lies the Imperial Palace, or Forbidden City, where China's Emperors used to live. The emperor is now history, but Tiananmen remains Beijing's political center.

It was on the Tiananmen rostrum where Chairman Mao formally proclaimed the founding of the People's Republic. "The Chinese people have stood up!" he declared in a shrill Hunanese accent. For decades, the whole nation followed Mao loyally. He emphasized political mobilization of the common man, especially the peasantry. In Mao's ideology, the Chinese people found hope in a New China, wherein citizens would always have a bowl of rice to eat and clothes to wear.   more ...

Freegate Update Released as National Day Approaches

Epoch Times
Sep 24, 2009

U.S-based Dynamic Internet Technology (DIT) launched more powerful anti-Internet censorship software on Sept. 22, partially as a response to the Chinese regime’s intensified Internet censorship and surveillance before the upcoming National Day celebration.

Netizens trying to visit overseas Web sites have recently found it more and more difficult to break through regime-backed blocks and filters. Moreover, Chinese netizens are being pressured to use real names to register Internet accounts and e-mail addresses.

Recently, in an unprecedented measure, the regime quietly instructed Internet service providers to start using Blue Dam, a server-side version of China’s much-disparaged Green Dam Internet filtering and monitoring software.

Dynamic Internet Technology, founded by IT experts connected through their practicing Falun Gong, works to help Chinese netizens circumvent regime censorship. Falun Gong is a spiritual practice currently persecuted in China; adherents are denied a voice within the mainland.

Bill Xia, CEO of DIT told The Epoch Times on Sept. 22, “During politically sensitive periods, the Chinese regime always reinforces Internet censorship and surveillance, and makes it more difficult for Internet users to visit overseas Web sites. However, we always adopt different approaches and update our software to get around it.”

The latest version DIT's software, FreeGate 6.89, has been enhanced to break through the increased censorship.

Messages of gratitude were quickly posted by Chinese bloggers.   more ...

70,000 Beijing Taxis Equipped with Hidden Micro-Monitors

Epoch Times
Sep 25, 2009
By Gu Qing’er

Hidden micro-monitors capable of transmitting passenger conversations via satellite have been installed in 70,000 taxis in Beijing, according to taxi drivers and industry officials. Critics worry that the monitors are a violation of privacy rights and suggest the move is related to the upcoming National Day celebration.

The policy of installing new monitors in taxis began during preparations for the Beijing Olympics. Authorities explained it was for protection of the drivers.

Zhao, a taxi driver in Beijing, told The Epoch Times that the previous monitoring system in taxis was a analog signal generator which could transmit a signal to the dispatch center with the push of a button. But Beijing has now equipped taxis with a new system.

“I don’t have a problem if the purpose of the new system is for car safety,” Zhao said. “When it’s for eavesdropping on passengers, it’s inappropriate. People on the other end of the monitor can hear what the passengers say the minute I push a button.”   more ...

Say it loud, I'm PRC and I'm proud

Asia Times
September 23, 2009
By Wu Zhong, China Editor

HONG KONG - In preparation for October 1, when grand celebrations will be held in the Middle Kingdom to mark the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China (PRC) by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), the government has released a set of 50 slogans to get people into the right mood.

China has undergone many changes over the past six decades in its march towards superpower status. But the CCP's rule has been constant. The party has changed in some ways, with softer attitudes on revolutionary class struggle, but certain rituals introduced by the founding leaders, such as National Day, are marked each year with grand celebrations.

Following a similarly long-observed ritual, the CCP last week publicized a set of 50 slogans which are to be painted on walls, written on placards and flags and carried by people during the PRC's birthday celebrations.

Since the time of Mao Zedong, paramount leader of the PRC from its establishment in 1949 until his death in 1976, the party has kept tight control on propaganda. In Mao's view, the party's two key weapons in its struggle for power were the gun and the pen. Mao's teaching is still faithfully followed, with the CCP keeping a tight grip on the military and on state propaganda.    more ...

China's ‘Great Famine’: Fifty Years of Silence

Epoch Times
Sep 20, 2009
By Charlotte Cuthbertson

Fifty years after China's Great Leap Forward, reporting on the issue by domestic media is still forbidden, according to a recent report in Hong Kong’s Ming Pao Daily News.

The 1959 Great Leap Forward saw a string of unrealistic policies like “achieving a grain production of 75,000 kg per hectare,” “doubling steel production,” and “surpassing Britain in 10 years and the U.S. in 15 years.” Current U.S. yields for corn hover at around 4,000kg per hectare.

The campaign required everyone in China to become involved in steel-making, forcing farmers to leave their crops.

These policies resulted in a nationwide famine that cost more than 40 million lives, and was explained officially as a “Three-Year Natural Disaster.” more ...

Beijing students protest teacher's detention

Associated Press
2009-09-20
By GILLIAN WONG

Nearly a hundred university students gathered outside a Beijing district police bureau Sunday to demand the release of a lecturer _ a former leader of 1989 Tiananmen pro-democracy demonstrations _ who they believe is being held unfairly by authorities.
It was the second day that students turned up at the public security bureau in the capital's Haidian district to call on police to release Ding Xiaoping, who lectures on various topics at several universities, said Yu Zhiwei, who joined the students Sunday.

It was not immediately possible to confirm Ding's detention. A man who answered the phone at the front desk of the Haidian police bureau said he had heard of an incident concerning a person named Ding Xiaoping, but did not have details and hung up when further questions were asked. Phone calls to the police bureau's information department rang unanswered.

Yu said Ding was taken away on Saturday afternoon by police and the students believed it was to prevent him from posing a threat to the upcoming celebration of the sensitive 60th anniversary of the founding of the Communist republic.

"He was taken away for political reasons. The police want to limit his activity," Yu said in a telephone interview after the students were dispersed. Yu, a 24-year-old recent graduate of the Beijing University of Technology, attended lectures by Ding when he was in college. "The students will not tolerate seeing their teacher being bullied by police," he said. more ...

Beijing birth defects rise again

BBC News
15 September 2009 14:52 UK
By Jill McGivering

The birth defect rate rose again in the Chinese capital Beijing last year, mirroring increases elsewhere in the country, according to figures.  The city's birth defect rate has almost doubled in the last decade.  The causes of such defects are not clear, but there are concerns they could be related to heavy pollution.  A growing number of babies in China are being born with abnormalities - ranging from extra fingers and toes and cleft lips to congenital heart disease.  In Beijing last year, according to Chinese officials, the rate was 170 per 10,000 births. That is significantly higher than the global average.  This fits with other reports about sharp rises in birth defects across the country, in both rural and urban areas.  Some provinces with large coal and chemical industries seem to have some of the highest rates.  It is hard to know for sure what's causing these defects, but they are helping to fuel broader concern about the health impact of acute air, water and soil pollution in China.   more ...

False China Reports of Flying Chinese Flag Outside White House

Epoch Times
Sep 10, 2009

The China Daily reported that the Fujian Association was granted permission to raise the national flag of the People’s Republic of China on the South Lawn of the White House at 10 a.m. on Sept. 20 to honor the founding of the regime. This news has been widely cited by mainland Chinese media.

But the White House dismissed the reports from China as inaccurate.

Fabrication has become a common practice among Chinese media, according to some overseas analysts. They also point out that China’s state media propaganda has had a negative psychological effect on the Chinese people. The combination of these two factors has thus led to the widespread practice of reporting false news in mainland China.

French commentator Zhang Lun, as reported by Radio Free Asia, remarked, “Because of the official media’s heavy propaganda in reporting on China as a great rising power these years, as well as the Chinese people’s collective mental hurdle due to humiliation [felt] over the past decades, they hope their country will play a pivotal role and be a shining star. I think this is a kind of abnormal psychology.”

Zhang noted that foreign flags are only flown on White House grounds or on Pennsylvania Avenue during state or official visits by a countries’ leaders. Raising the Chinese flag for a Chinese celebration is simply not possible.   more ...

Customer Beaten to Death by Walmart Employees

weirdasianews.com
September 9, 2009

At Walmart, theft is not tolerated. At least not at the Walmart in Jingdezhen, China, where a customer died at the hands of Walmart employees who suspected her of stealing.

It started out when one of the Walmart employees suspected a female customer of theft. The customer was then under surveillance for a few minutes before being approached by the staff.

The Walmart employee requested to search the customer’s bag and the female customer refused to hand it over, stating that it was a violation of her privacy.

Next thing she knew, more Walmart employees gathered around her and started beating her up.  more ...

景德镇“沃尔玛”员工群殴顾客致死

【大纪元9月6日讯】景德镇市女市民余小春因被沃尔玛保安怀疑偷东西，被沃尔玛5名员工拦截在回家的路上。双方随后发生争执，期间5名青年围住这位女顾客暴打，致其伤重不治身亡。事发
多天后，该起事件才见诸于大陆报端。 据江南都市报报导， 月30日晚7时40分，沃尔玛保安喻某怀疑在超市购物的余小春有盗窃商品的嫌疑，便安排女保安胡某对余小春进行跟踪。
在余小春到达人民广场原五中地段时，喻某带着超市资产保护部的工作人员刘某、余某和梁某将余小春围住，并向余小春索要沃尔玛购物发票。

余小春出示发票后，随即以喻某等人没有穿沃尔玛制服不是超市工作人员为由，将已出示的购物发票抢回，结果双方发生激烈争执，并互有打斗，最终余小春被打倒在地上。
随后被前来的警察送往医院救治。事后，家人在死者身上找到了受害人购物的发票。9月1日下午，医院对余小春家属下达了病危通知书，9月2日凌晨余小春不治身亡，案件一下升级为刑事案件。
目前警方已将两名嫌疑人余某和刘某抓捕，并对其他3名参与人员进行了传讯。据家人哭诉，从事发到现在，沃尔玛一方一直保持沉默。

Arrests over China Wal-Mart death

BBC News
8 September 2009 15:18 UK

Two Wal-Mart employees have been arrested in the Chinese city of Jingdezhen, in connection with the death of a customer, local police say.  Reports say Yu Xiaochun was intercepted and badly beaten by five Wal-Mart security guards who suspected her of shoplifting.  She died in hospital three days after the 30 August beating.

Wal-Mart has confirmed the incident and said it was fully co-operating with the relevant authorities.

Horrific scene

An eyewitness said she saw four or five young men beating the woman a few hundred yards away from the Wal-Mart store, and she had even gone over to tell them off. She said the scene was horrific.   more ...

China Coal Mine Blast Kills 35, 44 Missing

Reuters Sep 8, 2009

BEIJING—A gas explosion at a coal mine in China's central Henan province early on Tuesday killed 35 people and 44 others were missing, the government's work safety watchdog said.   Another 14 workers had escaped the mine, which was a small, locally operated venture, at the time of the accident, the State Administration of Work Safety said in a statement on its website   www.chinasafety.gov.cn).   The report said rescue teams were still searching for the missing miners and safety officials would investigate the cause of the blast, but it gave no further details.    more ...

Six-Year-Old Chinese Girl Dreams of Being a Corrupt Official

Epoch Times
Sep 7, 2009
By Luo Ya

A short video posted on NanDu.Net, a Chinese news website, featuring a six year old girl from Guangzhou City has become the talk of China. When asked about her ideal life, the first grader proudly announced that she dreamed of becoming “a corrupt official, as they have lots of property.” The video was soon being discussed throughout the major media and Internet forums.

By late Sept. 2, the video had already received 14,000 hits, but was soon blocked and later deleted by the website. NanDu.Net had set up a poll for viewers to vote on how they felt about the video; the majority said it “accurately reflected the reality of Chinese society.”   more ...

Journalist Defector Tells of Abuse and Corruption in China

Says that many are renouncing the Chinese Communist Party because of it

Epoch Times
Sep 6, 2009
By Lin Yi

Qiu Mingwei, former journalist of the official state newspaper People's Daily, at the Indonesian Airport after fleeing China seeking political asylum. (Wu Xue'er/The Epoch Times)
Qiu Mingwei, a former journalist of the People's Daily who recently fled China, says that more and more Chinese Communist Party members are becoming disappointed in the organization and renouncing it online, using either their real names or an alias.

Qiu, 34, worked as the Deputy Chief of the "People’s Forum," a subsidiary of the People’s Daily, the main mouthpiece of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in the mainland.

In June he traveled to Hong Kong to attend the International Federation of Journalists’ conference. During his stay he was photographed participating in Hong Kong's July 1 march, an annual rally supporting democracy and human rights. Soon after his return to China he went back to Hong Kong on July 30, this time fleeing political persecution for his involvement in the rally. He currently lives in Indonesia and is seeking political asylum.

At a press conference in Hong Kong on Aug. 23 he publicly renounced the CCP, making his case another in a string of high-profile defections of individuals in Communist Party propaganda and intelligence organs. Previous cases include Chen Yonglin, a former diplomat; Hao Fengjun, a former member of the “610 office,” an agency set up specifically to persecute adherents of the Falun Gong spiritual practice; Han Guangsheng, a former Public Security Bureau director; and Li Fengzhi, a former intelligence officer.

Qiu said what he considered the “long-term, continuous brainwashing” that staff endured at the People's Daily made a lot of staff members unhappy.

"Do you know which song do we have to listen to everyday?" he asked rhetorically. "'There Would Be No New China Without the Communist Party.' I've been listening to that song since I was in elementary school. I'm so fed up with it," he said.   more ...

China warning to syringe stabbers

BBC News
6 September 2009 16:30 UK

China has warned anyone found guilty of syringe attacks that led to protests in the western city of Urumqi could face the death penalty, state media reports.  Harsh punishment would be meted out to those who carried out stabbings with hypodermic needles, the Xinhua news agency said.  Twenty-five people have reportedly been held over the attacks in the capital of north-western Xinjiang region.

Chinese officials have blamed Uighur Muslim separatists for the incidents.  At least five people have died this week in ethnic unrest triggered by the stabbings, with thousands of angry Han Chinese staging daily mass protests.    more ...

China boycotts opening of Taiwan-hosted games

The Star
September 5, 2009

TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP): China boycotted the opening ceremony of the Taiwan-hosted Deaf Olympics on Saturday, apparently to protest the presence of Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou at the event.

The move follows a similar boycott by China of the opening ceremonies of the Taiwan-hosted World Games in July.

The Chinese did not say why they were not attending the Deaf Olympics ceremony, but the act is almost certainly related to Ma's role in declaring the games open.

Taiwan and China split amid civil war in 1949 and the communist mainland still views the island as part of its territory.

Because of this claim, Chinese attendance at the ceremony could have been seen as lending legitimacy to Ma's presidential role. That would contradict Beijing's long-standing position that Taiwan lacks state sovereignty.   more ...

Local governments keep Chinese public in the dark about pollution

guardian.co.uk
September 4, 2009
Jonathan Watts

China's environment ministry says polluters are protected by a 'black box' of secrecy as local governments withhold information

Polluters in China are operating in a "black box" of secrecy, the Ministry of Environmental Protection has warned amid a rash of violent protests related to industrial poisoning.  Offenders are protected by the vast majority of local authorities defying Beijing and violating state law by refusing to disclose information about pollution, with a study showing just 4 out of 113 local governments complied.  The ministry said this lack of transparency was partly to blame for recent riots over lead and manganese poisoning in Shaanxi, Hunan and Fujian, which has affected thousands of children. "Environmental impact assessment was meant to prevent these kinds of harm, but EIA has repeatedly failed to carry out its duties," the ministry noted on its website after the riots. "In the battle between illegal polluters and their opponents, the disparity in power is too great for the public interest to be effectively protected."

An information transparency law introduced in May 2008 was supposed to ease public concerns about the environment and to hold polluters to account.  But more than a year after it came into effect, a survey by leading NGOs and academics found that only four local governments provided comprehensive details about pollution violations as they were obliged to do.  Eighty-six failed to respond beyond claiming the information was secret or an inappropriate subject to raise in an economic downturn. Others simply ignored the request.   more ...

Dalai Lama says ready to negotiate with China

Reuters
September 3, 2009
By Ralph Jennings

TAIPEI (Reuters) - The Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader branded by Beijing as a separatist, said on Thursday he was ready to negotiate with China on issues concerning his homeland but wanted to see a "green light."

"Our position is very clear. We are always ready (to negotiate) as long as we get a green light from China," the Dalai Lama told Reuters in Taipei, a day before he was set to leave Taiwan after praying for victims of a recent deadly typhoon.

He said China had given no green light for talks "so far."   more ...

China dissident given jail term

BBC News, Beijing
2 September 2009 11:39 UK
By Michael Bristow

A Chinese dissident active in the underground China Democracy Party has been sentenced to 13 years in prison for subversion.  Xie Changfa was arrested after trying to organise the party's first national congress in the city of Changsha, Hunan Province.  The 57-year-old's lawyer, Ma Gangquan, said his client intended to appeal against the verdict.  The China Democracy Party was set up in 1998, but has never been approved. "This is one of the most severe sentences of a dissident in several years," said a statement from the group Human Rights in China.

Re-education camp

According to court documents, Chinese prosecutors accused Xie of plotting to overthrow China's socialist system and subvert state power.  The dissident, who denied the charges, was detained in June last year after trying to set up the political party meeting.  He was tried in April at the Changsha Intermediate People's Court and sentenced on Tuesday.  According to Human Rights in China, Xie's brother and six friends were in court during the 30-minute sentencing. "The charge runs counter to the constitution because that gives citizens the right to establish a political party," Xie's lawyer told the BBC.    more ...

China's manufacturing continues to grow

CNN News
September 1, 2009
By Justine Lau

China's manufacturing sector expanded for the sixth straight month in August to a 16-month high, according to the official purchasing managers' index, an indication that the economy continued to see strong recovery.

The China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing said on Tuesday the index rose to 54 last month, up from 53.3 in July, as strong spending in heavy industries spurred growth.

A reading above 50 signals an expansion while one below the threshold represents a contraction.

"It suggests the manufacturing sector is still expanding, mainly because of strong activities in heavy industries such as cars, steel and increasingly commodity," said Ben Simpfendorfer, economist at RBS.

The HSBC China PMI, published separately, also rose in August to a 16-month high of 55.1, from 52.8 in July.

The strong PMI readings suggested that China's economy would continue to grow at a fast pace despite fears that a slowdown in bank lending would stall recovery. Such concerns have led to high volatility in the Shanghai stock market. Chinese stocks fell 6.7 per cent on Monday in their biggest fall in more than a year. The 21.8 per cent slump in August was the second biggest monthly loss for the Shanghai Composite index for 15 years.

The Shanghai Composite was flat at 2,667.22 on Tuesday.

"With ... construction works being implemented at full speed to generate demand for industrial goods, domestic demand has been substantially lifted as indicated by significant improvements in the output and new orders indexes, both of which are close to series record highs," said Qu Hongbin, chief China economist, at HSBC.

"Industrial activity should continue to grow in the coming months, driven by strength in domestic demand and a rebound in exports," said Jing Ulrich, head of China equities at JPMorgan.

Manufacturing activity also expanded in other Asian countries. In Taiwan, the HSBC PMI rose for the sixth successive month from 53.8 in July to 55 last month. In South Korea, the HSBC PMI posted 53.6 in August. Although down from July's 54, it was still the second highest reading in 19 months.

Japan this week said the seasonally adjusted Nomura/JMMA PMI rose from 50.4 in the previous month to 53.6 in August, its highest level since November 2006.   more ...

Chinese Regime Blacklists 247 Dissidents

NTDTV
Aug 28, 2009

The Chinese communist regime has created a black list of 247 people it considers to be dissidents. Chinese media are forbidden to write about them but one blogger on the list says the black list my backfire.

Zan Aizong is a well-known Chinese blogger who's sometimes critical of the Communist Party. In 2006, he was arrested and fired from his job as the Zhejiang bureau chief of the Chinese Ocean News for writing an article that exposed the forced demolition of a Christian church building.  Well now the regime has labeled him a dissident—adding him to a secret media blacklist and shutting down his blog.

The blacklist was created by China’s Propaganda Ministry. It contains the names of 247 so-called dissidents that Chinese media are now forbidden to interview or write about.   more ...

A Decade of Courage
The Falun Gong more ...

China admits death row organ use

BBC News
Wednesday, 26 August 2009 14:32 UK

China is trying to move away from the use of executed prisoners as the major source of organs for transplants.  According to the China Daily newspaper, executed prisoners currently provide two-thirds of all transplant organs.  The government is now launching a voluntary donation scheme, which it hopes will also curb the illegal trafficking in organs.  But analysts say cultural bias against removing organs after death will make a voluntary scheme hard to implement.

Thriving black market

About 1.5 million people in China need transplants, but only about 10,000 operations are performed annually, according to the health ministry.   more ...

People’s Daily Journalist Publicly Quits Communist Party

Epoch Times
Aug 24, 2009
By Lin Yi

Qiu Mingwei, an employee of Beijing's mouthpiece People's Daily who fled to Hong Kong publicly announces that he quits the CCP and its affiliated organizations. (Sun Qingtian/Epoch Times)
Quitting the Chinese Communist Party
HONG KONG—Qiu Mingwei, a former journalist for the Chinese communist regime's propaganda news paper, The People’s Daily, who fled to Hong Kong last month, announced in a press conference on August 23 that he quit the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and its affiliated organizations, making him the first working employee of an organization affiliated with the regime’s Central Propaganda Department to quit the CCP using his real name.

Mr. Qui worked as the Deputy Chief of the “People’s Forum” of People’s Daily, the main mouthpiece of the CCP. He traveled to Hong Kong in late June to attend the International Federation of Journalists’ conference, and during his stay he was photographed participating in Hong Kong's July 1 march, an annual rally supporting democracy and human rights. He fled the mainland to Hong Kong on July 30.    more ...

Trials due over Xinjiang riots

BBC News
Monday, 24 August 2009 11:26 UK

More than 200 people will be prosecuted on charges of involvement in the riots last month in the Chinese province of Xinjiang, the China Daily has reported.

The trials are expected to start this week in Xinjiang's capital, Urumqi.  Charges include vandalising public property and transport, organising crowds to cause bodily harm to others, robbery, murder and arson.  Chinese police detained more than 1,500 people after violence between ethnic Uighurs and Han Chinese left 200 dead.  The China Daily said that most of the arrests were made in Urumqi and Kashgar, a southern Xinjiang city with a heavy concentration of Uighur people.

The state newspaper did not give a breakdown on how many Uighurs and how many Han would go on trial, but it said more than 170 Uighurs and 20 Han lawyers had been assigned to the suspects.    more ...

As Recession Eases, No Escape for Hong Kong's Cage Dwellers

Time Magazine
Aug. 21, 2009
By Lisa Thomas / Hong Kong

It's cramped and stale in what Lau Chi-lok calls home: a 20-square-foot portion of an apartment that he shares with 21 other men. For $167 a month, Lau gets the top bunk in what the government euphemistically calls a "bed space," or cubicle dwelling — a tiny rectangular area, partitioned by thin wooden slabs or steel mesh wire to safeguard the resident's belongings, barely large enough for a mattress.

At least there's air-conditioning, turned on at 9 p.m. every summer night. For most people in Hong Kong, the lives of Lau and his roommates are a world apart, hidden behind gated doors and dark stairways. But this is home to thousands of Hong Kong's urban slum dwellers, who are barely making ends meet and — in this year's downturn — putting off dreams of a better life. Across Victoria Harbour from Hong Kong's central business district, in a neighborhood of bright neon signs and bustling vendors, 33-year-old Lai Man-law has been looking for a job for the past year while living in a mesh-wire 18-square-foot cage. "It's dirty and hot. There are cockroaches and bedbugs, and the air-conditioning doesn't work," he says.   more ...

Beijing’s stinking hypocrisy

The Far-Eastern Sweet Potato
Thursday, August 20, 2009

“The difficulties Taiwan compatriots are facing [in the wake of Typhoon Morakot] mean the same to us,” Chinese President and Chairman of the Central Military Commission Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) told a delegation of ethnic minorities from Taiwan led by Non-Partisan Solidarity Union Legislator May Chin (高金素梅) yesterday. “We will continue helping them in rescue and relief as well as support them in rehabilitation.”

“We share the same feeling with Taiwan compatriots, especially the ethnic minorities, who suffered serious life and property loss in the recent disaster. We are very much concerned” (胡锦涛说，不久前，台湾遭受了历史罕见的台风灾害，台湾同胞的生命财产蒙受了重大损失，特别是一些台湾少数民族同胞受灾严重。我们对此感同身受，十分关切，十分牵挂。在这里，我谨代表大陆同胞，向遭受台风袭击的台湾父老乡亲致以深切慰问，对不幸遇难的台湾同胞深表哀悼。) the state-controlled People’s Daily newspaper quoted the leader as saying.

According to the paper, China has donated about 176 million yuan (US$26 million) and 25 million yuan in disaster relief material to Taiwan, including 10,000 sleeping bags, 10,000 blankets and 1,000 sterilization appliances.

All of this would be heartwarming were it not for the fact that Beijing is exploiting a natural catastrophe for propagandistic purposes (and so is Taiwan’s representative office in Denmark, which issued a press release celebrating China’s humanitarian assistance without making a single mention of any of the other donors, including the US).   more ...

China web addict 'beaten' at camp

BBC News, Beijing
19 August 2009 11:55 UK
By Michael Bristow

A teenage boy is in a serious condition after being repeatedly beaten at a boot camp to treat internet addicts in China, state media have reported.  Pu Liang, 14, is said to have been beaten several times by the camp's principal and by other students.  It comes after a 15-year-old boy was beaten to death earlier this month at another of the military-style camps.  The death drew outrage in China, where many parents and officials believe some children spend too much time online.

Pu Liang's mother told local reporters that she sent her son to the camp, in the city of Chengdu in Sichuan province, because he was spending too much time playing online games. 
She said the camp claimed it could cure the "problem" for 5,000 yuan ($730; £450).  But the mother said her son was beaten up and now has chest and kidney problems.

The camp is now closed and its principal has been arrested, according to Chinese media reports.

'Punishment effective'

Wu Yongjing, the man who set up the military-style camp, admitted to the BBC that youngsters were sometimes beaten. "Physical punishment is an effective way to educate children - as long as it can be controlled," he said.    more ...

Villager from Zhejiang: ‘I Want to Quit the CCP’

Epoch Times
Aug 18, 2009
By Weikun Ding

The following is a personal renunciation of the Chinese Communist Party received through tuidang.epochtimes.com. Since the publication of the Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party, tens of millions of such statements have been received. Learn more about this phenomenon.

I, Weikun Ding, male, from Xinyuan Village, Shaolin Town, Cixi City, Zhejiang Province, was born on September 11, 1935. I joined the CCP in 1965. On November 13, 2005, I was arrested illegally by the Cixi CCP party committee and city government through the Fentai branch of Beijing police station at Qiaoyuan Hotel, while appealing to uphold the country’s law, to protect people’s right to subsistence. I was subsequently sentenced to seven months for obstructing official affairs, which led to severe injury to my body and I was disabled. I haven’t been able to take care of myself in normal daily life ever since.

In 2002, using the “500 Acre land usage quota of Anjie County and Changshan County of Zhejiang Province” and deceiving means, the CCP committee and government of the city of Cixi illegally and forcibly seized 2400 acres farmland of Xinyuan Village Town of Shaolin. On July 1, 2003, around 10am, the government, colluding with a few commercial companies, including Feilong Realty, an electromechanical equipment company and automobile city etc. hired around 200 thugs of criminal Yuyao with high pay to fabricate the incident of “03.7.1,” the suppression of a riot. I witnessed the killing and injuring of dozens of villagers, on the spot.   more ...

China 'angry' at Australia tour

BBC News, Sydney
18 August 2009 05:20 UK
By Nick Bryant

It has emerged that China cancelled a ministerial visit to Australia in protest against a recent visit from the Uighur leader, Rebiya Kadeer.  Beijing is angry that Canberra granted a visa to Ms Kadeer, an ethnic Uighur Muslim who lives in the United States.  The Australian foreign affairs ministry has confirmed the Kadeer controversy lay behind the cancellation of a visit.  The Kadeer visit has soured Australia's relationship with China - some analysts have suggested it is at a 10-year low.    more ...

Lead poisons over 300 children in China: report

Agence France-Presse
2009-08-11 12:57 AM

More than 300 children in northern China have been diagnosed with lead poisoning suspected of being linked to a smelting factory near their homes, state press reported yesterday. The children, all living alongside the Changqing industrial park in Fengxiang county, Shaanxi province, were found to have as much as twice the safe level of lead in their blood, the China Daily said.  They sleep more than before, cannot concentrate and react very slowly, the report said, citing local residents.  Normal lead content in the blood is below 100 milligrams per litre, and above 200 milligrams is considered hazardous, but the lead in some of the youngsters' blood was more than 250 milligrams per litre, it said.  Local residents believe that the Shaanxi Dongling Lead and Zinc Smelting Factory, only about 500 meters (yards) from their homes, was to blame for the poisoning, the paper said.  more ...

Tibet 'Chinese issue' says Dalai

BBC News
10 August 2009 18:51 UK
By Shirong Chen

The Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, has said the Tibetan issue is a Chinese domestic problem.  His statement, given in an interview with the BBC, may breathe new life into the deadlocked talks between him and the government in Beijing.  But he also said Beijing's policy on ethnic minorities was a "failure".  The Dalai Lama has been campaigning for "meaningful autonomy" for Tibetans within China, but talks ended last year in bitter accusations from Beijing.

Between 2002 and 2008, nine rounds of negotiations were conducted between Chinese officials and his representatives.  They degenerated from the initial cautious welcome to recriminations from the Chinese side.   more ...

Rehab staff 'killed web addict'

BBC News
5 August 2009 12:35 UK

A Chinese teenager sent to an internet addiction rehabilitation camp has allegedly been beaten to death by its counsellors, according to reports.  A number of employees of the Qihang Salvation Training Camp in Nanning have been arrested over the death, his father Deng Fei told the Global Times.  The camp had promised to put Deng Senshan, 15, under 24-hour supervision.

China is increasingly taking action against what it sees as a pandemic of web addiction.  Some estimates suggest up to 10% of the country's 100 million teenage web users could be addicted, and a growing number of rehabilitation services exist.  However, there is little consensus on how to treat the addiction. In July, China's Ministry of Health formally banned the use of electroshock therapy as a treatment option.     more ...

Starvation Policy Puts 65 Prisoners at Risk in China

Epoch Times
Aug 5, 2009
By Joan Delaney

The lives of 65 Falun Gong practitioners held in a prison in Northeast China are in danger due to a policy of starvation being carried out by prison authorities, according to the Falun Dafa Information Center in New York.

In early July, Li Weilong, the new deputy warden of Daqing Prison in Heilongjiang province, ordered that all divisions holding Falun Gong practitioners bar them from going to the canteen and that no one be permitted to bring them food, FDIC says in a statement.

Li gave further orders on July 12 to force feed certain practitioners a mixture of raw corn flour, water, and large amounts of salt.

FDIC spokesperson Erping Zhang says this is done to keep the starving practitioners alive so that they may be “transformed”—a process by which they are forced to recant their faith and a key component of the Chinese regime’s campaign against Falun Gong.

“They want to torture them but they don’t want them to die,” says Zhang.

“One of the aims is to break the will of practitioners and force them to denounce Falun Gong through torture or brainwashing and other means such as starvation. If they can convert the practitioner they probably get an award.”

Such force-feedings are routinely conducted by prison guards with no medical training and are used as a form of torture rather than to nourish, according to FDIC’s statement.

They are a leading cause of death among Falun Gong practitioners who have been killed in custody since the Chinese Communist Party launched its persecution against the spiritual discipline in 1999.   more ...

China to roll out rural pensions

BBC News
5 August 2009 17:08 UK

The Chinese government is to introduce a new pension scheme for the country's hundreds of millions of rural workers.

The minister for social security announced that a trial scheme would be extended across China by October.

The government will pay for basic insurance for rural workers and farmers will contribute to a pension pot.

There is widespread discontent among China's rural poor about the wide disparity between their income compared to that of urban residents.

The government already operates a basic pension plan for urban workers.

Regional variations

"The new system is paid for by farmers, collective benefits and government subsidy, which is totally different from the old system, paid for by farmers themselves, with no subsidy from the government," Hu Xiaoyi said, according to state news agency, Xinhua.

I feel happy that farmers can get a pension now, although it's not that much
Chen Dajin, farmer

Jobless pose 'grave crisis'

The scheme will be valid for all farmers over 60. Anyone over the age of 16 who does not take part in the government's existing urban pension scheme is eligible to pay into the programme.

A pilot version of the scheme is currently being trialled across some parts of China, including in Tangwei country, in Suzhou.    more ...

Workers’ Health Sacrificed to Boost China’s Economy

World’s factory offers no protective gear, no health care, and no compensation

Epoch Times
Aug 5, 2009
By Heng He

Zhang, a farmer in Xinmi City in Henan Province, worked in a factory run by Zhengzhou Zhendong Ltd. in nearby Zhenzhou City making fire-retardant bricks. In a workplace filled with thick dust, he was given no protective gear. In August 2007 Zhang began complaining of a persistent cough and shortness of breath, and fatigue, which he initially thought was the flu.

He went to several hospitals, trying to find the cause of his sickness. The diagnosis of hospitals in Beijing and Zhengzhou, the capital city of Henan Province, was the same: pneumoconiosis. More commonly known by a variety of names, the most familiar of which is the black lung disease suffered by coal miners, pneumoconiosis is an occupational disease caused by breathing in dust.

According to China’s laws and regulations, a job-related disease, also called an occupational disease, can only be diagnosed by a state-designated institute. In Zhang’s case, this was the Zhengzhou Occupational Disease Prevention and Treatment Center (ODPTC). This center rejected the other hospitals’ diagnosis and insisted on its own diagnosis, suspected pneumoconiosis plus tuberculosis.

According to the ODPTC diagnosis, Zhang had the symptoms of pneumoconiosis but the disease was not progressed far enough for him to be eligible for the free treatment and job-related compensation promised by China’s laws to someone with a fully developed case of black lung disease.

Frustrated by his two-year-long struggle to get an accurate diagnosis, Zhang requested the painful surgical procedure of thoractomy, a surgery his family could just barely afford. In a thoractomy, the surgeon cuts the rib muscles and spreads the ribs apart, so that a piece of lung may be removed for analysis. The lung sample obtained showed that Zhang did indeed have pneumoconiosis.

The Zhengzhou ODPTC, however, didn’t surrender easily. It said that only the pathology diagnosis from the removal of a whole lung lobe or from a dead body, not a single piece of tissue, could be accepted as the basis for a conclusive diagnosis. The ODPTC also asserted that no other hospitals are authorized to diagnose job-related illnesses.

Zhang had apparently spent his family’s last savings without obtaining a correct diagnosis from the ODPTC.

But his dramatic decision to undergo open-chest surgery in order to try to get his case treated fairly caught the attention of the media. Public opinion was soon on Zhang’s side, which caught the attention of the provincial authorities. Suddenly, everything started to move forward in the fast lane.   more ...

China 'trusts prostitutes more'

BBC News
4 August 2009 13:21 UK

China's prostitutes are better-trusted than its politicians and scientists, according to an online survey published by Insight China magazine.

The survey found that 7.9% of respondents considered sex workers to be trustworthy, placing them third behind farmers and religious workers.

"A list like this is at the same time surprising and embarrassing," said an editorial in the state-run China Daily.    more ...

Eight Percent of China's Workers Earn 55 Percent of Income

Radio Free Asia
Jul 30, 2009
By Xie Wong

Foraging for food. The latest research report indicates that China�s per capita income gap is 55 fold, far beyond the official public figure. (Getty Images)
A recent study reveals China’s per capita income gap reaches 55-times the difference between the rich and the poor, a number far beyond the official figure. The researcher believes that both corruption as a consequence of the ill-conceived system and gray income of special groups of population contribute to this gap.

In a recent publication entitled, “Distribution of national income and gray income,” deputy director of National Economic Research Institute, China Reform Foundation, Wang Xiaolu concludes that the official average income figure is obviously distorted and lower than the actual figure due to all practical difficulties during the survey, especially the considerable amount of gray income obtained by the rich. Gray income includes income of illegal, non-disciplinary, questionable, and undisclosed sources.

The report is based on a 2005 to 2006 survey of income of more than 2,000 households in urban and rural China. The data revealed that in the year 2005 average disposable income for the top 10 percent with high income (a total of 19 million households and 50 million people in China) is 97,000 yuan (US$14,197) per person, three times higher than the official figure, 29,000 yuan (US$4,244). The national hidden income totals 4.4 trillion yuan (approximately US$644 billion), which is equivalent to 24 per cent of China’s GDP.   more ...

Report says 13 million abortions a year in China

Associated Press
2009-07-31 12:43 AM

China performs about 13 million abortions every year, mostly for single young women who experts say know little about contraception, state media said yesterday in a rare disclosure of sensitive family planning statistics.

The China Daily newspaper said the real number of abortions is believed to be even higher since the 13 million accounts for procedures in hospitals but many more are known to be carried out in unregistered rural clinics. Also, about 10 million abortion pills are sold every year in China, the paper said.

It quoted Wu Shangchun, a government official with the National Population and Family Planning Commission, as saying that nearly half of the women seeking abortions in China had used no form of contraception.

China imposed strict birth controls in the 1970s, limiting most couples to just one child. Sterilization and the use of intrauterine devices, or IUDs, for women are widely promoted - and subsidized - forms of contraception for married women.

However, the policy tends to overlook the contraception needs of unmarried women even as attitudes toward casual sex have dramatically liberalized.

The report said about 62 percent of the women undergoing abortions were single and aged between 20 and 29 years old.   more ...

Behind China's Aggressive Stance on Swine Flu

Time.com
Wednesday, Jul. 29, 2009
By Austin Ramzy / Beijing

As swine flu continues to infect people around the world, governments are weighing measures like school closures and travel restrictions to dampen its effects. But no country has gone as far as China, where thousands of people who have come into contact with the disease have been quarantined. Beijing says that such aggressive steps will help slow the H1N1 pandemic, which has killed 816 people worldwide since emerging this spring in Mexico. As of July 27 China has reported 1,930 swine-flu cases but no deaths.

Infectious-disease experts say it is impossible to stop swine flu's spread and that extensive hospitalization and quarantine efforts divert important resources. Beijing's quarantine efforts have come under added scrutiny over the past few weeks because several large school groups visiting from the U.S. and Europe have been placed under isolation. One group of American high school students who planned to spend this month visiting China's cultural sites have instead endured two separate stints in quarantine. The 65 students and seven chaperones from St. Mary's School in Medford, Ore., were isolated in a Beijing hotel after arriving in mid-July, when one student tested positive for H1N1. After four nights at the Yanxiang Hotel in northeastern Beijing, a facility reserved for quarantined travelers, they were allowed to resume their trip. (See five burning questions about swine flu.)

But after touring Beijing sites and flying to Henan province, another student tested positive for the flu. That prompted officials from China's Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to quarantine the group once more. As their July 31 departure date approaches, six students with swine flu are in a hospital in the provincial capital of Zhengzhou. The rest of the group is hoping they will be cleared to fly home on Friday. "We came here for a three-week trip," says Scott Dewing, a chaperone and St. Mary's technology director. "When all is said and done, we'll have had at most three days of seeing sites in China."    more ...

China concerned about abortions

Authorities in China have highlighted inadequate knowledge of contraception and poor sex education as major factors in the high number of abortions there.

BBC News
Thursday, 30 July 2009 13:04 UK

There are 13 million abortions each year, compared to 20 million births, according to newly published research.  Researchers believe the real figure could be even higher because there are many abortions at unregistered clinics.  Other countries have higher rates. They include Russia - which some years has more terminations than births. 

'More sex education'

The abortion figures were published in the China Daily newspaper.  Other Chinese media outlets have published similar figures, although it was not immediately clear when the research was carried out.  China imposed strict family planning rules in the 1970s in an attempt to limit the growth of its population. 

Many pregnant women who have had their full quota of children have abortions to prevent unwanted births.  But young single women are most likely to have abortions in a country where there are 20 million births each year, the research found.  In its front-page story, China Daily said the high number of abortions was "cause for concern", adding that many women who have abortions are single and aged between 20 and 29.  more ...

3,000 Ningbo Salt Farmers Protest Met Armed Force

Epoch Times
Jul 30, 2009
By Luo Ya & Tian Xi

More than 3,000 farmers from Changguo County Salt Farms in eastern China’s Ningbo protested against suppression and injustice on the morning of July 25. They gathered around the south bound coastal highway, blocking traffic. The local regime sent forth 300 riot and armed police. The protest ended with two farmers beaten till unconscious, more than 10 injured, and 6 arrested.

Jinling Villagers of ChangGuo County granted an interview with the Epoch Times and explained the incident. It is revealed that the specially armed police also made a visit that night to the village, arresting more farmers.

Changguo County Salt Farms are owned by share holders of the neighboring 13 farming teams. Local peasants live on salt farms. Two years ago, local officials sold the Chengguo County Salt Farms to nearby Shipu Town for construction of Shipu Science and Technology Park. The construction is now in the land filling phase.

More than 3,000 salt farmers gathered around the south bound coastal highway to protest against injustice and suppression. (The Epoch Times)
Villagers said that local officials sold the Farms but the farms received low compensation, “several negotiations (for higher compensation) have failed and the farmers have been frustrated. With no other way, farmers have started to protest by sitting in the salt farms to stop the land-fill process about half of a month ago.”

In the morning of July 25, thousands of people spontaneously gathered on south bound coastal highway and block traffic going to Beijing and Shanghai for a couple of hours.    more ...

China's 'bandit phones' making big scores

CNN
Thu July 30, 2009
By Lara Farrar
For CNN

(CNN) -- The white BMW Mr. Liu drives around this humid coastal city in southern China may be real, but the spiffy little black smart phone he carries with him is definitely fake.
Phone clones: China's 'bandit' mobile phone market is huge.

"But it has Bluetooth, GPS, Wi-Fi, FM radio, a digital video camera, hundreds of games, even a voice recorder," says Liu. "And I invested over $500,000 to make it."

Liu, a 31-year-old who studied fine arts in college and designs cigarette cartons on the side, is one of countless thousands here who've earned big bucks manufacturing "gray market" mobile phones, millions of which are not only being sold across China but also exported to dozens of developing countries in Africa, Latin America, the Middle East and other regions around the world.

"They are everywhere," said Karl Weaver, a wireless evangelist and mobile device specialist for the Chinese handset ecosystem. "You can find them in major department stores and malls, in back alleys and in underground markets. Everyone is selling them. It is really very entrepreneurial."

In 2008, an estimated 150 million, or 20 percent, of the 750 million handsets produced in China were either counterfeit or off-brand phones, according to CCID Consulting, a market research firm based in Beijing. Of those, over 51 million were sold in China while the remainder were sent to foreign markets.

Known here as "shanzhai ji", or bandit phones, China's gray market handset industry was virtually non-existent just a few years ago. While a handful of illegal companies produced black market mobiles, they often were of poor quality mainly because the technology needed to make them was hard to come by and even harder to master.   more ...

China to cut number of executions

BBCNews
Wednesday, 29 July 2009 12:47 UK

China is to reduce the number of people it executes to "an extremely small number", a top court official says.

Zhang Jun, vice-president of the Supreme People's Court (SPC), said the court would in future impose more suspended death sentences.

Two years ago China gave the SPC power to review death sentences handed down by lower courts. That has already led to fewer executions.

Rights campaigners says China executes more people than any other country.

Mr Zhang, quoted in the state-run China Daily, said legislation would be improved to reduce the number of death sentences, and that the SPC would tighten restrictions on the use of capital punishment.

He said: "As it is impossible for the country to abolish capital punishment under current realities and social security conditions, it is an important effort to strictly control the application of the penalty by judicial organs."    more ...

10,000 Uighurs disappeared during unrest in China, exiled leader claims

guardian.co.uk,
29 July 2009 12.38 BST
Justin McCurry in Tokyo

Rebiya Kadeer says undercover snatch squads targeted Uighurs during Urumqi clashes
Rebiya Kadeer, the exiled Uighur leader, today claimed that almost 10,000 Uighurs had "disappeared" during ethnic unrest in China's north-western region of Xinjiang earlier this month and called on the international community to launch an inquiry.

Speaking during a controversial visit to Japan, Kadeer said Chinese authorities had used undercover "snatch squads" to target Uighurs during clashes between Uighur and Han Chinese in the city of Urumqi on 5 July.

"Almost 10,000 people attending the protests in Urumqi disappeared in one night," Kadeer, president of the pro-independence World Uighur Congress, said. "Where did they go? If they died, where are their bodies? If they were detained, where are they being held?"   more ...

Uighur Kadeer arrives in Tokyo

BBC News
28 July 2009 15:05 UK

Uighur activist Rebiya Kadeer has arrived in Tokyo for a visit which has prompted an angry reaction from China.  Mrs Kadeer is expected to use her three-day stay to drum up support for the mainly Muslim minority group.  Beijing says the 62-year-old was behind a recent outbreak of deadly ethnic unrest in Xinjiang province.  But Mrs Kadeer, once a businesswoman in China and now leader of the exile group the World Uighur Congress, has denied any involvement.  Wearing a traditional Uighur hat, she was greeted at the airport by a small group of supporters carrying Uighur flags. "I came here to let the Japanese people know the terrible conditions that the Uighurs are suffering," Mrs Kadeer was quoted as saying by Japan's public broadcaster NHK.  She said she wanted to "let the people know how many Uighurs are actually killed and arrested", referring to recent unrest in Xinjiang, western China.

Mrs Kadeer's visit to Japan will include a news conference and meeting with members of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party.  But one supporter told the AFP news agency earlier the itinerary could change according to events. "We are a bit worried about ensuring her safety as she has been attacked by mobs in the past elsewhere," said the unnamed supporter.  The BBC's Roland Buerk in Tokyo says that ties between Japan and China have improved in recent years, despite tensions over wartime history and territorial disputes.  But Mrs Kadeer's visit threatens to strain relations between the major trading partners, says our correspondent.  Japan's Foreign Ministry Press Secretary, Kazuo Kodama, said Mrs Kadeer had been granted a visa "based on the usual procedure", so the visit should not cause any diplomatic problems.    more ...

Turkey No Longer a Safe Haven for Chinese Uighurs

Time Magazine
Jul. 27, 2009
By Pelin Turgut / Istanbul Monday

On a humid afternoon in a quiet Istanbul suburb, Abdullah, a pint-sized, bright-eyed octogenarian, presides over a chaotic household. Over a dozen Turkish Uighurs have gathered to welcome his distant cousin and family who have fled China's Xinjiang province after the recent communal violence. Fearing retribution from the Chinese authorities, he insists on using only his first name. The dining room's table is laden with Uighur specialities — steamed dumplings, sesame-encrusted flatbreads, pastries stuffed with cheese and dates. "This isn't our homeland," Abdullah says, leaning on a mahogany cane, "but Turkey is our home. We are comfortable here." He fumbles for the Turkish ID card he carries in his shirt pocket and points to his place of birth: Xinjiang. Abdullah received Turkish citizenship almost instantly when he first arrived, via Afghanistan, in 1981.

Turkey once had an open-door policy toward its Uighur brethren, the Turkic ethnic minority who began arriving in waves from China from the late 1930s. In 1952, for instance, when several thousand Uighurs fled China's communist regime into Pakistan, the Turkish government stepped in and brought 1,850 people overland to Turkey. The new arrivals were settled in purpose-built housing — called the New Quarter — in the city of Kayseri in central Anatolia, and were given jobs and citizenship.

Such a welcome, however, is unimaginable today.

Even though public sympathy still runs strong for the long-suffering Uighur population of what many Turks refer to as East Turkestan, Ankara has become increasingly wary of antagonizing Beijing. Just last month, President Abdullah Gul visited China and oversaw the signing of $1.5 billion in Turkey-China business contracts. After the recent violence in Urumqi, one minister called for a boycott of Chinese goods, but that was quickly retracted; Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan labeled events there "tantamount to genocide," but his outburst was soon smoothed over by apologetic Foreign Ministry officials. (See pictures of the race riots in China.)

"It's a dilemma for Turkey," says Hugh Pope, author of Sons of the Conquerors: The Rise of the Turkic World. "On one hand, there is a bond. [Uighurs] are Turks. You can fly east from Istanbul, get off the plane and make conversation to some degree. On the other hand, most of the official reaction was domestic political grandstanding. You don't get the impression that the Prime Minister cares as much about Xinjiang as he does, say, about Gaza." (Erdogan had a high-profile clash with Israel's President Shimon Peres at the World Economic Forum in Davos last February when he sharply condemned Israel's military offensive in the Palestinian enclave.)

Turkey's ability to strike a balance between its ties with the Uighurs and with Beijing may soon be further tested if Rebiya Kadeer, the fiery Washington-based Uighur leader, decides to take up Erdogan's offer of a visa to visit Turkey. Her previous requests to visit were denied under pressure from Beijing, which accuses her of fomenting the current outbreak of violence. Chinese officials have warned Turkey against allowing Kadeer to visit.    more ...

China's military cautiously tries out new openness

Reuters
Tue Jul 28, 2009 7:41am E
By Lucy Hornby

BEIJING (Reuters) - The Chinese soldiers shot down targets, overpowered black-clad terrorists and then lined up at attention in front of journalists.

"Now you are invited to conduct individual interviews!" announced the commander of the Third Guard Division, wrapping up a rare media tour of a Beijing military base on Tuesday designed to show the Chinese military's modernity and openness.

The People's Liberation Army's new mantra of transparency and public diplomacy is partly meant to reassure outsiders about China's rising military strength.

"The degree of openness is an expression of national confidence," said security expert Ma Zhengang, president of the China Institute of International Studies.

"For example, a rich household is very willing to welcome guests, but a poor family would be embarrassed."

In a small step for openness but a giant leap for the Chinese military, the Ministry of Defense also plans to debut a website on August 1, the official China Daily reported this month.

"The point of the website is to explain the People's Liberation Army better to the rest of the world," ministry spokesman Hu Changming said.

"It's a way to increase understanding between countries and raise trust between militaries."

China's military is the world's largest, and reported budget spending has grown by double digits in recent years.

But the secrecy of China's political system makes its Asian neighbors and Washington wary about the rising power's military intentions. Rivals worry that China is spending more than its reported $70 billion this year for instance, which is dwarfed by the Pentagon's budget of more than $500 billion.   more ...

US-China ties 'to shape century'

BBC News
Monday, 27 July 2009 22:46 UK

The relationship between the US and China will shape the 21st Century, President Barack Obama has said, as top officials met in Washington for talks.

"Co-operation, not confrontation" was the way forward, he said, with climate change, security and the economy all areas where common ground existed.

His comments opened two days of talks at a new forum between the two nations.

The US-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue is expected to focus on working towards economic recovery.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton are co-hosting the talks.

China has sent Vice Premier Wang Qishan and State Councillor Dai Bingguo to the forum.    more ...

Chinese hack film festival site

Chinese hackers have attacked the website of Australia's biggest film festival over a documentary about Uighur leader Rebiya Kadeer.

BBC News
Sunday, 26 July 2009 05:38 UK

Content on the Melbourne International Film Festival site was briefly replaced with the Chinese flag and anti-Kadeer slogans on Saturday, reports said.  In an earlier protest on Friday, Beijing withdrew four Chinese films.  Melbourne's The Age newspaper says private security guards have been hired to protect Kadeer and other film-goers.  She is due to attend the screening of Ten Conditions of Love, by Australian documentary-maker Jeff Daniels, on 8 August.    more ...

The race for influence in Zimbabwe

The west's reluctance to offer aid to Zimbabwe, while China steps in, could badly damage any chance of reform

guardian.co.uk
Saturday 25 July 2009 17.00 BST
François Grignon

When Zimbabwe's prime minister Morgan Tsvangirai visited western countries last month, leaders greeted him with great encouragement and congratulations – but with very little money. When he returned to his country, he was welcomed with a $950m credit line facility from China. The unity government of Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) and Zanu-PF of Zimbabwe's president Robert Mugabe was more than happy to accept China's offer and begin negotiating a separate $5bn deal involving the mortgaging of Zimbabwe's vast platinum concessions.

With Tsvangirai's western tour netting only $500m, all of which was humanitarian assistance, the fear is that all this could undermine Zimbabwe's reform elements battling to promote democracy in the resource-rich country.

While Chinese investment could give the transitional government breathing space to pursue much-needed reforms, it does not benefit Zanu-PF and the MDC equally. The fact that Mugabe negotiated the Chinese financial aid which, if concluded, would ultimately go down as the major injection to prop up the inclusive government, strengthens his position. Having the ability to engineer financial aid for the inclusive government puts him in a very strong position to manipulate the pace of reform to his advantage and could strengthen his quest to perpetuate his dictatorial reign. Moreover, Chinese investment will go through the traditional corrupt channels where the ruling Zanu-PF clique will have access to it. The funds are likely to benefit selected institutions that consolidate Mugabe and Zanu-PF's stranglehold on power.

At the same time, Tsvangirai's standing within the balance of forces in the government could be weakened by the Chinese deal. Mugabe has publicly boasted that he initiated the deal that Tsvangirai and the MDC are now clutching onto, while Tsvangirai's western tour is painted as a failure by Zanu-PF. The failure by the west to respond generously to Tsvangirai's plea raises doubts about its commitment to fully back pro-democratic forces in Zimbabwe.   more ...

Hundreds of Africans Protest in Guangzhou

The Epoch Times
July 24, 2009

Hundreds of Africans surrounded a police station in the Yuexiu District of Guangzhou on July 15, protesting the death of a Nigerian man allegedly caused by police pursuit.

According to the Guangzhou Institute of Urban Management, there are currently about 20,000 Africans applying for official residency in Guangzhou.

The Guanzhou police are said to have arrived at a local trade mart to check the residence registrations and passports of some of the African residents. A Nigerian man was pursued by the police and ended up falling to his death from an 18-meter (59-foot) building. His body was brought to the Kuangquan Police Station by hundreds of Africans during their protest.

According to Radio Free Asia, the police did not take coercive measures as they do with most petitioners; rather, they established security zones and allowed the protesters to continue to gather until eight in the evening. Representatives were sent by police station to negotiate with African representatives as well.   more ...

Climate change pact 'needs' China

BBC News
Friday, 24 July 2009 10:40 UK
By Michael Bristow
BBC News, Beijing

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has said there can be no global climate change deal without China's support.

Speaking in Beijing, he also praised China's efforts so far to promote sustainable economic growth and develop renewable energy sources.

Experts say China has already committed itself to reducing carbon dioxide emissions - a driver of global warming.

World leaders hope to produce a new agreement to tackle climate change at a meeting in Copenhagen in December.

Mr Ban was speaking at a UN-backed event in Beijing to promote the use of energy-saving lamps across China.   more ...

A Chinese Attorney Who Dares to Defend Falun Gong Practitioners

Epoch Times
By Fang Xiao
Epoch Times Staff Jul 23, 2009

Ten years ago, when the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) first started persecuting Falun Gong and all of the media were slandering Falun Gong, a lecturer in the Philosophy Department of Xiamen University sent out a different message to his class. Now ten years later, he, together with five other lawyers, represented three Falun Gong practitioners who pleaded innocent to charges brought against them in court. This individual’s name is Jin Guanghong, an attorney at the Beijing Heda Law Firm.

Jin said, "I told my class that the CCP persecuted Falun Gong first, and then declared it as an evil cult. This is not right. It does not follow the proper legal protocol."

Jin told The Epoch Times that as a result of his fully legal efforts for Falun Gong practitioners, Gao Zhisheng, an internationally well-known human rights lawyer, had been disbarred, detained and tortured by the secret police and remains missing since February 4, 2009. Jin said that in Gaos absence more lawyers had joined in to continue his work

"At least twenty lawyers have been disbarred in Beijing this year,” said Jin. “This makes it very difficult to find a lawyer who dares to represent Falun Gong."   more ...

Perils of doing business in a secret state

Rio Tinto 'spies' fell victim to a Chinese regime where the rules are changing - and unknowable

guardian.co.uk
Wednesday 22 July 2009 18.14 BST
Tania Branigan in Beijing

When Chinese police detained four Rio Tinto employees – including an Australian national – for allegedly stealing state secrets, a chill ran down the spines of many foreign investors.

Given its timing shortly after Rio aborted plans to take a £12bn investment from Chinalco, the state-owned metals producer, many initially suspected it was retribution for that debacle. Australia was quick to suggest it could affect the international business community's perceptions of the world's third largest economy.

Today the latest round of a war of words between the two governments over the spying allegations deepened as it emerged that China has told the Australian government that it has "sufficient evidence" to support the accusations.

He Yafei, China's vice-minister of foreign affairs, said: "I stressed that we have sufficient evidence showing that the individuals involved obtained China's state secrets using illegal means. The case has entered the judicial process and I requested the Australian side to respect China's judicial sovereignty."

Rio has denied the claims that its employees have been involved in any kind of spying or bribery in China.

Integrity

Canberra said that it would "take some time" to resolve the crisis, which has seen Rio's top iron ore executive in China, Australian Stern Hu, held for 18 days along with three colleagues. Stephen Smith, the Australian foreign minister, said he still hoped to meet his Chinese counterpart to discuss the matter.

China is Australia's biggest trade partner, with trade worth $53bn (£32.3bn) last year. Last week Simon Crean, its trade minister, warned that the case was "important as a signal to all people seeking to do business in China" and called for the matter to be handled quickly.

With the case still under investigation, no one can be sure of the precise details of the allegations; still less of whether they have foundation. Rio Tinto has stressed that it believes its staff "acted at all times with integrity and in accordance with Rio Tinto's strict and publicly stated code of ethical behaviour" and denied claims that they bribed steel companies.   more ...

Han Chinese revenge attackers should be punished, says Beijing official

Uighur assaults on Han in Xinjiang were reported extensively but witnesses say revenge attacks days later were not covered

guardian.co.uk
Tuesday 21 July 2009 08.54 BST
Tania Branigan in Beijing

Han Chinese who took part in violent riots in China's north-west region of Xinjiang should be punished, a senior official in Beijing said today.

While state media have extensively covered the events of 5 July, when Uighurs launched indiscriminate assaults on Han, they did not report Han revenge attacks on Uighurs two days later.

At least 197 people died in the inter-ethnic conflict – including 137 Han and 46 Uighurs – and 1,700 were injured.

"After the 5 July incident, some people in Urumqi, out of indignation over the crimes committed by rioters or sorrow for the loss of their families, did take to the streets," acknowledged Wu Shimin, vice-minister in charge of the state ethnic affairs commission, when asked about the events of 7 July at a press conference in Beijing.

"I believe all ethnic groups need to go through normal channels and adopt legal means to express their opinions; even opinions on unlawful incidents. All people are equal before the law; all ethnic groups are equal before the law. Anyone who has violated the law should be severely punished."

The government has warned it will execute those who used "cruel means" during the unrest. At least 1,400 people have been detained, of whom the majority are believed to be Uighurs.

With Urumqi under a heavy security presence by 7 July, paramilitary police used repeated bursts of teargas to disperse the Han crowd as it headed for a Uighur neighbourhood.

But witnesses reported attacks on Uighur businesses and Uighurs told the Guardian they believed at least four people had been killed in violence that day and the next.  more ...

China admits Uighur riot killings

BBC News
Saturday, 18 July 2009 22:54 UK

A Chinese official says police shot dead 12 Uighur rioters in Urumqi this month, in a rare government admission of deaths inflicted by security forces.

Nuer Baikeli, governor of Xinjiang region and himself a Uighur, said those killed had ignored police warning shots and were attacking civilians and shops.

He said police had shown restraint and had no choice but to act.

Some 200 people - mostly Han Chinese - died in the clashes between Muslim Uighurs and Han Chinese in Urumqi.   more ...

Chinese officials dunked after taking Shaq's balls off students

Taiwan News
2009-07-18 12:13 AM

School officials in southwest China have been slammed for confiscating basketballs that iconic NBA superstar Shaquille O'Neal signed and gave to four teenage boys, state press said yesterday.

The 2.16 meter giant center distributed the basketballs to the students on Tuesday while visiting a region in Sichuan province that was hit by a devastating earthquake in May last year, the China Daily reported. Officials at the school in Mianyang city later took the balls away from the boys, resulting in a confrontation with the families of the teenagers who protested unfair treatment, it said.   more ...

Beijing can't bury the Xinjiang story

Asia Times
July 17, 2009
By Antoaneta Bezlova

BEIJING - The story of ethnic strife engulfing China's far-western province of Xinjiang may have been relegated to the inner pages of the country's state-controlled newspapers, but it found space on the front pages of almost every other Chinese daily.

Unlike the Tibetan riots last year, when the media were initially told to suppress the story, the clashes between Han Chinese and Muslim Uyghurs that erupted in the provincial capital of Urumqi on July 5 was widely reported.   In many ways, this is symbolic of the profound changes taking shape in this fast-developing society, which the communist mandarins can no longer fully control.  Taking cue from the protests in Iran, where the emergence of new media tools like Twitter, Facebook, and You Tube ensured the story was broadcast to the rest of the world, Beijing was eager to put its own version out as quickly as possible.

On July 7, widely read local newspapers like the Beijing Youth Daily and the Beijing News published pictures of burned cars, smashed buses and bloodied people in Urumqi. Accompanying reports from the state news agency, Xinhua, claimed the violence that erupted was "a pre-empted, organized violent crime. It is instigated and directed from abroad and carried out by outlaws in the country".  Beijing has blamed Rebiya Kadeer - a female Muslim-American emigre, as well as pro-independence Uyghur groups in exile in Washington, Munich and London for masterminding the revolt from afar.

Even the Southern Weekend - a liberal newspaper based in China's free-wheeling south - fell in line with the mandated version of events. It devoted a full page to profiling Kadeer, describing her as "the Dalai Lama of Uyghur people". It spent little effort on probing how more than a hundred people died in a matter of hours in a city swamped with paramilitary police or questioning the officially released number of Han Chinese and Muslim Uyghur victims.

Beijing insists that Uyghurs' fight is for independence and has condemned their demands for religious freedom and genuine autonomy as separatist agitation. The Uyghurs - members of a Turkic-speaking group that is culturally, religiously and linguistically different from the Han Chinese - have long complained of the heavy-handed Chinese policies.  more ...

One Thousand Protesters Block Roads in Wuhan

Epoch Times
July 16, 2009

Over one thousand workers at the Wuhan Boiler Company blocked a major road in Wuhan City, the capital of Hubei Province, on July 14 to protect their job security. One elderly worker was arrested.

On the same day, appellants from neighboring Tianmen City also went to the Hubei Provincial Government building and blocked the entrance.

"I was crossing Yamao Square when I saw at least one thousand workers from the Wuhan Boiler Company blocking the road to the factory,” one witness said on Monday.

“Afterwards, people started to move toward Wuluo Road. When the workers moved toward the center of Wuhan Road, they clashed with several hundred policemen and anti-riot guards. An elderly worker was arrested and put in a police car that drove toward Zhongnan Road. One female worker was arrested after being surrounded by anti-riot guards, but she was later rescued by other workers. Those workers were booing in a rage. People were talking loudly. Some residents were taking photos with their cell phones. An intern reporter from the Chutianjin Newspaper was interviewing the workers, and I asked him, ‘Does Chutianjin Newspaper dare to report this?’ The intern reporter looked embarrassed and did not reply.”

One worker at the scene said he heard a police officer talking on his cell phone, saying that appellants from Tianmen City were gathering in front of the Hubei Provincial Government building and blocking the entrance. The police officer was instructed to dispatch some policemen over to the building. “It looks like there are many appellants who came from Tianmen City.”

It is reported that the reason the workers blocked the roads was because Wuhan Boiler Company sold some of the company’s buildings to a real estate development company, which will result in over a thousand workers losing their jobs. The workers therefore took to the streets en-mass and held banners that read “Say No to Rights Violations, Yes to Human Rights,” “Fight to Survive,” and “Protect Our Families.” They stood on the streets and blocked the traffic. Many of them were elderly grey-haired women.  more ...

China tops list of unfriendly countries

Central News Agency
Page 2
2009-07-15 12:11 AM

Despite improved relations between Taiwan and China over the past year, China has remained at the top of a list of countries that people of the younger generation believe are unfriendly toward Taiwan, according to the results of a survey released yesterday by the King Car Education Foundation. According to the survey conducted in June on the global views of senior high school and university students, when asked to identify countries that are unfriendly toward Taiwan, 82.9 percent of the respondents mentioned China. Second on the list was South Korea, which was named by 33.3 percent of respondents.

Among the countries viewed as friendly toward Taiwan, Japan was at the top the list, picked by 44. 4 percent of the respondents.  more ...

China tries to block Uighur film

BBC News
Wednesday, 15 July 2009 16:17 UK

Organisers of Melbourne's International Film Festival have defied calls from China not to show a documentary about an exiled Uighur leader.

Festival director Richard Moore said a Chinese consular official had insisted that the film be withdrawn, but he had refused to do so.

The film, Ten Conditions of Love, centres on Rebiya Kadeer, the US-based head of the World Uighur Congress.  China accuses the group of inciting recent ethnic unrest in Xinjiang.

Beijing and Canberra are already locked in a row over an Australian mining executive who has been arrested for spying in China.

'Strident'  Mr Moore said that after the event's programme was published, he was contacted by Melbourne-based Chinese cultural attache Chunmei Chen who urged him to withdraw the film.

"I said I had no reason to withdraw the film from the festival and she then proceeded to tell me that I had to justify my decision to include the film in the festival. "No-one reacts well to strident approaches, or to the appearance of being bullied. I don't think it's a positive way of behaving," he added.  He said he told Ms Chen he did not have to justify the film's inclusion, "then politely hung up".

The Chinese consulate in Melbourne has not commented on the incident.  China has accused Ms Kadeer of orchestrating recent bloodshed in Xinjiang, home to the ethnic Muslim Uighurs and a growing number of China's Han majority.  Violence between the two groups this month has left more than 180 people dead and more than 1,600 injured, Chinese authorities say.

Ms Kadeer, one of China's richest women, was jailed in China for endangering national security but released in 2005 on medical grounds. She now lives in the US.

Ten Conditions of Love, by Melbourne film-maker Jeff Daniels, tells of Ms Kadeer's relationship with her activist husband Sidik Rouzi and the impact her campaigning had on her 11 children.  Three of her children have been jailed.    more ...

Taiwan cannot accept 'Chinese' identity

Taiwan News
Page 6
2009-07-14 12:00 AM

The just concluded "Cross-Strait Economic and Cultural Forum" convened by the Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese Nationalist Party fully confirmed expectations that the fete between the reconciled ruling parties of Taiwan and the People's Republic of China would announce a new agenda toward top-down "cultural unification" under the banner of "identity with the Chinese race-nation."

The highly political character of the Changsha meeting was displayed by the tone-setting address delivered Saturday Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference Chairman Jia Qinglin who defined the objective of cross-strait cultural and educational cooperation as "jointly passing down Chinese culture to bolster the spiritual bonds between compatriots on the two sides" and "promoting Chinese culture and Chinese racial identity."

Indeed, Jia openly declared that the "distortion" of "Taiwan consciousness" into "Taiwan independence" could "not be allowed."

Besides defining what was "allowable," namely "Chinese racial identity," and what was not permitted, namely Taiwan national identity, the CCP side unilaterally announced that PRC universities would accept Taiwan academic records and tests for applications by Taiwan students in a move designed to force the KMT government to announce the validity of diplomas issued by PRC educational institutions despite intense opposition in Taiwan.

While the CCP had no compunctions about promoting its interests, not one Taiwan delegate, including the seven unauthorized Democratic Progressive Party participants, raised any objections to the PRC's pervasive violations of press freedom and freedom of cultural expression or criticized China's grossly inadequate protection for intellectual property rights, a matter that would seem to be crucial for bilateral cooperation in "cultural and creative industries."

Most shamefully of all, instead of upholding the values of democracy and free speech, former Council of Agriculture chairman Fan Chen-tsung Fan and ex-DPP legislator Hsu Jung-shu allowed themselves to be used as propaganda fodder to create the false impression of multi-partisan backing for the KMT-CCP goal of rolling back Taiwan consciousness and cultural pluralism and protection for freedom of expression and reimposing "Chinese" cultural and national identity.   more ...

Compensation Figure Reveals Much Higher Death Toll in Xinjiang Uprising

Epoch Times
July 12, 2009
By Wu Weilin and Luo Ya, Epoch Times Staff

The Chinese regime recently announced special compensation plus funeral fees totaling 100 million yuan for ”the innocent dead” of the July 5 violence in Urumqi. With the maximum allowance of 200,000 yuan for one death, the 100 million yuan can cover at least 500 victims’ families, a number that far exceeded the previously released official death toll at 184.

According to a report by the regime’s mouthpiece, Xinhua News Agency, Urumqi Municipal Civil Bureau Director, Wang Fengyun said that Ministry of Civil Affairs will dispense special compensation fees—200,000 yuan for each death—plus 10,000 funeral fees for each innocent dead to the bereaved family.

Thus far, the first installment of 50 million yuan has been allocated. The total compensation is about 100 million yuan. Wang also indicated that government officials had met with 2,400 members of the victims’ families by the afternoon of July 10.

Based on the above released figures, the total “innocent dead,” according to the regime’s definition, could reach 500, and this figure still leaves room for people to speculate how many “non-innocent dead” there could be.

If it is assumed that there are four people in one bereaved family, the 2,400 members of victims’ families could translate to a death toll of 600 deaths. However, the regime has only admitted 184 deaths up to July 11.  more ...

Secret Tiananmen Square memoirs of Chinese party leader to be published

Former Communist chief denounces 1989 massacre and praises western-style democracy

guardian.co.uk
Thursday 14 May 2009 13.06 BST
Tania Branigan in Beijing

The secretly recorded memoirs of the Chinese Communist party leader who was ousted for sympathising with the students during the 1989 pro-democracy demonstrations in Tiananmen Square have been released four years after his death.  In tapes secretly recorded during his 16 years under house arrest, Zhao Ziyang, the former head of the Communist party, denounced the killing of protesters as a "tragedy", and challenged the party's subsequent rejection of democratic reforms.  The tapes were smuggled out of China and will be published in English and Chinese this month – as Prisoner of the State: The secret Journal of Zhao Ziyang – days before the 20th anniversary of the massacre.  In them, he praised western-style democracy and insisted that the activists were not attempting to overthrow the system, according to extracts obtained by Reuters.   more ...

Swine flu found on China mainland

China has confirmed the first case of swine flu on the Chinese mainland, and is searching for people who could have been in contact with the infected man.

BBC News
Monday, 11 May 2009 06:54 UK

The 30-year-old student, who has been named only as Mr Bao, had recently flown into the country from the US.  The authorities say he travelled from St Louis to Tokyo, then to Beijing and finally landed in Chengdu on Saturday.  Earlier this month China diagnosed a case of the H1N1 virus in a Mexican traveller in Hong Kong.    more ...

Words Censored by China’s Largest Search Engine

The Epoch Times
May 11, 2009

New Tang Dynasty Television (NTDTV) recently obtained a list of politically “sensitive” words monitored or censored by China’s largest Internet search engine, Baidu.com, as well as internal documents governing Baidu’s censorship operations. Topping the list is the phrase “Chinese Communist Party.” Phrases such as “withdrawing from the Communist Party” and “disintegrating the Communist Party” are also censored.

On May 4, NTDTV reported 13 categories of politically sensitive words, including those related to “counterrevolutionary” activities, human rights and appeals, the Tiananmen Square Massacre, Falun Gong, ethnic and race relations, military secrets, and organ harvesting.

Under the category of counterrevolutionary activities, censored phrases include “withdrawing from the Communist Party,” “end the rule of the Communist Party,” “dictatorship,” “one-party system,” “human rights in China,” “tyranny,” “ruling government,” and “brainwashing.”

In the Falun Gong category, other than words directly related to the practice, phrases such as “Nine Commentaries,” “The Epoch Times,” “Gao Zhisheng,” and “kidney harvesting from live people” are also on the list.

In addition, there is a special category for words related to the sale of harvested organs. This category shows the Communist Party’s fear of the consequences of harvesting Falun Gong practitioners’ organs while they are still alive.    more ...

Chinese director defies film ban

Controversial Chinese director Lou Ye will defy a five-year state ban on making films by premiering a new movie at the Cannes Film Festival.

BBC News
Monday, 11 May 2009 12:35 UK

Ye, 44, was given the ban in 2006 for screening epic love story Summer Palace at that year's Cannes festival without Chinese government permission.  Now Spring Fever, a story about love and homosexuality, is among 20 films competing for this year's Palme d'Or.  It was shot secretly with a handheld camera in China using five actors.  China's film censorship system must change - it must at least get rid of this provision of banning filming.

The film, made in two months in Nanjing city, tells the story of a wife's quest to spy on the passionate relationship between her husband and another man.  It could be his most controversial film yet because it deals with homosexuality in China - still a taboo subject in the country.    more ...

Chinese Corporations’ Profits Rise, Along With Discontent

Epoch Times
May 7, 2009

Chinese state-owned corporations are posting record profits, but the figures are not a cause for celebration by ordinary Chinese.

On April 19, Li Rongrong, the chairman of China’s State-Owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC) revealed that China’s 140-odd state-owned corporations had a joint profit of 665.3 billion RMB (US$97.4 billion) in 2008.

That includes profits of over US$16 billion by each of China’s top three corporations: China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), China Mobile and Industrial, and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC). Mr. Li revealed a total profit from these corporations of US$9.12 billion in March alone, an 85.7 percent increase on the previous month. To put these numbers in context, Chinese state media reported that the joint profit of U.S. fortune 500 companies was only US$98.9 billion in 2008, a record drop of 85 percent.

But savvy Chinese observers were far from impressed by the news, which was condemned in online forums by thousands of Chinese Internet users. The gist of the criticism was that the profits have nothing to do with innovative technology or optimized management, but rather to the state giving each corporation a monopoly and favorable regulations.    more ...

US jails China bankers for fraud

BBC News
Thursday, 7 May 2009 02:39 UK

Two former Bank of China managers and their wives have been given lengthy jail sentences in the United States for stealing $485m (£320m).

Xu Choafan, Xu Guojun, Kuang Wan Fang and Yu Ying Yi had also been convicted of passport fraud and of laundering the money through banks and casinos.

The Las Vegas court also ordered the four to pay back $482m.

Prosecutors said the convictions showed foreign nationals could not "live off their ill-gotten gains in the US".

Xu Chaofan and Xu Guojun were sentenced to 25 and 22 years respectively while their wives Kuang Wan Fang and Yu Ying Yi to eight years each.

The charges against the four included monetary transactions with stolen money, transportation of stolen money, passport fraud and visa fraud.    more ...

Chinese reveal child quake toll

China says 5,335 schoolchildren died or remain missing after last year's devastating Sichuan earthquake.

BBC News
Thursday, 7 May 2009 11:58 UK

It is the first time that Chinese authorities have given an official estimate for the number of children lost in the disaster.

The official number is far lower than other independent estimates, says the BBC's Quentin Sommerville in Beijing.

The issue is sensitive because of accusations that many schools were poorly constructed.

When the earthquake struck, a disproportionate number of school buildings collapsed, our correspondent says.

Chinese officials made the announcement days before the 12 May anniversary of the disaster that killed up to 90,000 people.    more ...

Chinese Regime Restricts Media Reporting on Flu Cases

Epoch Times
By Lin Yi
Epoch Times Staff May 6, 2009

The Chinese regime imposed a restriction on media reports about H1N1 flu cases, requesting that all media follow its official reports using the excuse of avoiding a mass panic. Hong Kong media workers criticize China’s move, citing it’s a repeat of the SARS error in 2003.

Ms. Serenade Woo, project coordinator of the International Federation of Journalists (China and Hong Kong) worries that under such a restriction the public won’t get timely alerts. “It is a question mark, whether the information can reach the people in a fast, timely and accurate manner,” she said.   more ...

China On The Black List Again

Extract From the 2009 Annual Report of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom

Click here to read the extract ...

Tiananmen: The flame burns on
Twenty years ago tanks rolled into Beijing's Tiananmen Square to crush the biggest pro-democracy movement in history. Hundreds were killed, thousands jailed and many fled to escape persecution. Here exiled leaders of the student revolution tell their remarkable stories and reveal how, after being forced to build new lives, they remain haunted by its bloody legacy

The Observer
Sunday 3 May 2009
Isabel Hilton

Over seven tumultuous weeks of nationwide demonstrations and protests, beginning with the death of the sacked reformer, Hu Yaobang, on 15 April 1989 and ending with the movement's violent suppression on 4 June, an estimated 100 million people across China demonstrated in support of political reform. The movement was inchoate, contradictory and politically confused but it remains the biggest peaceful pro-democracy movement in human history. For the millions who took part, life would never be the same again.

Last week I listened to a man in his 40s unburden himself of a secret he had carried for two decades. He was a student leader in a major provincial city, and although he was arrested in mid-June 1989, he was released after a month of enforced confessions. He moved to another city and eventually made a successful career. But for 20 years the burden of the hopes that were shattered on 4 June, and the apprehension that he could be targeted at any time by a regime that never forgets and rarely forgives, has weighed on his spirit. It is part fear, part depression, part rage.

Some are still in prison. Others, in mourning, are still harassed. A few campaign openly for a reversal of the Communist Party's verdict that the movement was the work of "a small clique of counter-revolutionaries" who wanted to overthrow the party and the socialist system. Behind the few high-profile campaigners and dissidents is the much larger throng of those who still nurse memories too painful to discuss.    more ...

China carries significant clout in modern world

Lancaster Eagle-Gazette
May 3, 2009

China has the largest population in the world - 1.3 billion people. That is equivalent to one-fifth of the world's population and nearly five times larger than the population of the U.S.
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China's land area is 3.6 million square miles, about 5 percent smaller than the U.S. Its per capita gross domestic product, which is value of all goods and services divided by the population, is $2,483 - 19 percent of the U.S.' per capita GDP.

On the surface, this per capita amount looks impressive for such a huge population, but it has a serious flaw. This number is the average between much higher-income residents along the Pacific Coast and very much lower-income inhabitants - peasants - in the agrarian inland. It is so grossly differentiated that it has the potential to cause major social unrest.

Is it possible for a stock exchange to exist in a communist country or is China no longer a communist country?

Following World War II, both China - under Mao Zedong - and Russia - under Josif Stalin - were fundamental communist countries. By the 1980s, Russia rapidly was moving away from Leninism, and is no longer a communist country. China implemented major political and economic reforms starting in 1976 under the leadership of Deng Xiaoping, which continue into the present. But, unlike Russia, China remains a communist nation.   more ...

‘I Didn’t Know the Persecution was Coming’

Epoch Times
May 2, 2009
By Mickey Lam and Simon Veazey, Epoch Times Staff

Ten years ago, the name of Falun Gong was thrust into the media spotlight around the world, as 10,000 gathered at the Chinese central government compound. Two of those present on that day in 1999 talk to the Epoch Times about the significance of the event, often shrouded in misunderstanding and confusion.

Even at the time, it was regarded as a remarkable event, finding its way into newspapers, broadcasts and news bulletins around the world. The image of 10,000 people appealing near the central compound of China's leaders shocked people inside and outside China, evoking memories of the courage, scale, tensions and hopes of the Tiananmen Square incident just ten years before.

But the true historical significance of April 25th, 1999 was to be revealed months later, when it became apparent that the event had been manipulated by the head of the Communist Party to set in motion a campaign of violence, torture and persecution against 100 million people.
The appellants on that day ten years ago all had one thing in common: they practised the spiritual discipline of Falun Gong.   more ...

China moves to curb virus spread

China says it will quarantine all those who travelled on a flight from Mexico with a man suffering from swine flu, in a bid to curb the spread of the virus.

BBC News
Saturday, 2 May 2009 13:05 UK

The 25-year-old man flew to Hong Kong via Shanghai on Thursday, and was admitted to hospital.

Beijing said it would put his fellow passengers under week-long observation. It also suspended flights from Mexico.

The move came as South Korea confirmed a case of the virus, the second country in North-East Asia to do so.

Globally, 16 countries have now reported swine flu cases. Six countries have confirmed person-to-person transmission.

In cases outside Mexico, where the virus emerged, the effects do not appear to be severe.    more ...

Beijing battles with unauthorized TV

Asia Times
May 1, 2009
By Peter J Brown

Like the personal computer and the Internet, the satellite television dish represents both a significant threat and an important tool to the Chinese government. Last June, the new Zhongxing-9 (Chinasat-9) satellite was launched. It will allow the government to provide government-sponsored satellite TV services to millions of households for the first time, broadcasting dozens of standard-definition and high-definition TV channels to otherwise unserved areas throughout rural China.

According to Brendan Murray, market analyst in Space and Telecommunications at Maryland-based Futron Corp, Chinasat-9 distributes China Central Television (CCTV) channels as well aslocal/provincial channels as part of China's "Cuncuntong" project, which aims to deliver state-run radio and TV to as many as 60 million families who do not now enjoy high-quality terrestrial TV services. more ...

Strawberry in Beijing Wal-Mart Has 13 Pesticides

Cebtral News Agency
April 30, 2009

Hong Kong supermarkets dumped vegetable stocks amid a new food scare after environmental group Greenpeace accused grocery chains of selling produce tainted with dangerous levels of pesticides. (Antony Dickson/AFP/Getty Images)
Greenpeace recently reported a tremendous number of pesticides remaining on fruits and vegetables in supermarkets in Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou, China. One strawberry found in a Beijing Wal-Mart contained 13 pesticides.

According to Health Times, Greenpeace investigators went shopping in December 2008 and February 2009 and bought 1 kilogram (about 2.2 pounds) of each type of common fruits and vegetables, such as Chinese white cabbage, spinach, beans, bitter melon, cucumbers, tomatoes, and strawberries, which is approximately the daily intake of a family of three.    more ...

Communist General Reveals China's 38th Army Refused to March on Tiananmen Square

Epoch Times
Apr 28, 2009

According to an article published in the March issue of Open Magazine, at a public speech in Yunnan province, General Liu Yazhou [1] said that 38th Army Commander Xu Qianxian had refused to follow orders to lead his troops into Beijing on the eve of the June Fourth Tianamen Square Massacre.

Liu said that General Xu was a real military talent and related some of his experiences with General Xu during a military exercise. “He was sitting in a relaxed attitude, or lying in a tent when he was commanding his troops in good order. That is, he is able to direct and determine the outcome of a battle which may be thousands of miles away.”

During the June Fourth Movement, the Commander of Beijing Military Area Command Zhou Yibing met General Xu personally and requested him to lead his troops into Beijing. General Xu asked Zhou whether he had orders from the Military Commission of the Central Committee. Zhou answered “Yes.”

Then Xu asked again whether Zhou had orders from Deng Xiaoping. Zhou again answered “Yes.” Xu asked whether Zhou had orders from Yang Shangkun, vice-chairman of the Central Military Commission. Zhou answered “Yes.” Then Xu asked whether Zhou had orders from Zhao Ziyang, first vice-chairman of the Central Military Commission. This time Zhou answered “No.”

General Xu then said I cannot follow the orders. (Note: Zhao Ziyang was ousted from power on the afternoon of the proclamation of martial law. General Xu knew well the answer to the question asked.) Zhou then hurled his accusation in Xu’s face, “Your wife is a judge. Your two sons are protesting in the Tiananmen Square! I know it.”

Liu said the 38th Army sympathized with the student demonstrators and so did the 28th Army because they were stationed in Beijing.

The 28th Army was marching into Tiananmen Square on the morning of June 4, 1989. Protesters and many citizens of Beijing constructed roadblocks to stop the military’s progress. On the way to Tiananmen Square, army commander He Yanran looked around and said, “Everywhere there is a green curtain of tall crops.” That means the PLA was regarded as Japanese enemies and the people were as many as tall crops. The political commissar replied to him, “One hundred thousand youths stand for one hundred thousand soldiers.” Vice-chairman of the Central Military Commission, Liu Huaqing requested Air Force Commander Wang Hai to send a helicopter to shout propaganda to the 28th Army such as “Move forward! Move forward regardless of anything!” But the army commander had no ear for this order. more ...

Possible Carcinogenic Protein Found in Chinese Dairy Products

Epoch Times
Apr 28, 2009

China’s dairy industry is hit by another scandal following the melamine-tainted milk incident. a possible carcinogen, hydrolyzed leather protein, was found in many batches of dairy products produced by the Morning Garden dairy company in Jinhua City, Zhejiang Province.

According to City Express’s report on April 27, someone sent an anonymous letter exposing the Morning Garden’s illegal practice to boost the apparent protein content of its product by adding leather protein.   more ...

Handbook of Beijing City Department Stirs Up Public Anger

By Jiang Hehua
Voice of America Apr 26, 2009

On April 20, a post on Tianya Community Online ignited heated discussions on Chinese media and blogs. The post disclosed part of a training handbook for city management teaching its officers how to beat people without leaving any evidence.

“Leave No Blood After Beating”

The post titled “Shocking! City management manual.” quoted the manual, “Not to leave blood on the offender’s face or wounds on the offender’s body. Make sure no one is around. (The beating) should be done in one continuous movement that is short, agile, and leaves no room for a victim’s response. It must be clean and well-executed and never hesitate to use your whole strength.” In three days the post received over 4,000 responses.

According to Beijing Times, the official title of the manual is “City Management Law Enforcement Practical Manual,” which is written and edited by the City Management Training Material Development Division under the Beijing Municipal Management Bureau and Beijing Municipal Work Management Committee Training Center. The Manual was published in 2006 by the National Academy of Education Administration.

Robbery by order

Shuai Jianhua, a street vender in Shenzhen has experienced raids by city management officers many times. Shuai told VOA that the city management officers are using a more subtle and cunning method now. It only takes them five minutes to finish robbing a vendor. The media have no time to catch and report the incident.

“I once met a captain of the city management division. I asked him why the officers behave like this. He told me that they were not meant to confiscate, but to take away goods from street vendors like me and it is an order from the top,” said Shuai, “It’s robbery, public robbery.”   more ...

Falungong silent in China, thriving abroad

Asia Times
Apr 25, 2009
By Kent Ewing

HONG KONG - Over the past decade, China's leadership has stood up to a daunting array of challenges as the nation continued its rise as a world power. Remarkably, one of the largest has been an army of meditation and exercise addicts whose leader claims to have supernatural powers.

Ten years ago this week the Falungong, an organization devoted to a variety of the ancient practice of qigong or deep-breathing exercises, shook the Chinese government to its core. In the largest demonstration since the occupation of Tiananmen Square by student-led pro-democracy demonstrators in 1989, more than 10,000 Falungong practitioners gathered outside Zhongnanhai, the red-walled Communist Party headquarters in Beijing. There they demanded the release of 50 sect members who had been detained in the northern city of Tianjin and government recognition of the group as a legal entity.

Many of the demonstrators who amassed in the streets around the Zhongnanhai compound on April 25, 1999, were armed with the writings of their spiritual leader, Li Hongzhi, now 57, who lives in exile in the United States. Their protest was peaceful and painstakingly organized. That same night they returned to the buses that had carried them to the party's nerve center and went back - in some cases to distant provinces - from whence they came.

Chinese leaders, including then-president Jiang Zemin, were shocked by this demonstration of mass mobilization and defiance, especially as it came so close to the 10th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown. Any group that could muster thousands of people in protest against the central government was destined to be banned, and within two months of its Zhongnanhai triumph, Falungong was denounced as an "evil cult" and prohibited from operating on the mainland, though the group still practices freely in Hong Kong.

Beijing also continued arresting - and, Falungong devotees abroad insist, torturing - members of the movement while at the same time launching a relentless propaganda campaign against its leader that continues today.    more ...

China school admits football scam

A Chinese principal has admitted that the school football team which won an international contest was stuffed with national squad players.

BBC News
April 24, 2009

Only three of the players actually attended Daping high school for girls in the south-western city of Chongqing, Chinese media said.

Principal Zhang Jianling has now made a public apology for the scandal.

The team won the trophy 12 days ago, beating a German team in the final. Officials say they will hand it back.

According to International School Sport Federation rules, all players taking part in the tournament must be enrolled at the school they are representing.

Reports said the team had been stacked with players from the national youth team and other top teams.    more ...

Falun Gong crackdown highlights religious freedom issue in China

USA Today
April 23, 2009
By Alexa Olesen, Associated Press

BEIJING — Now entering its second decade, China's relentless drive to obliterate the Falun Gong spiritual sect has left a human toll ranging from the deaths of followers in custody to the self-exile of others and the beatings of their lawyers.

Saturday marks the tenth anniversary of a protest by an estimated 10,000 practitioners in Beijing that alerted the communist government to the group's strength and wide appeal.

The April 25, 1999, demonstration was intended to show how Falun Gong believers had learned compassion, forbearance and tolerance, said practitioner Bu Dongwei in a telephone interview from the United States, where he fled six months ago.

But the size and discipline of those who gathered unsettled the communist leadership, ever wary of independent groups that could threaten its authority.

Two months later, the group was labeled an "evil cult" and banned, its leadership arrested, and a campaign launched to forcibly reconvert millions of believers. Anyone practicing Falun Gong or even possessing materials about it could be arrested.   more ...

China displays naval power, pledges peace

Vessels from U.S., 13 other nations review fleet, including nuclear subs

Associated Press via msnbc.com
April 23, 2009

QINGDAO, China - Chinese President Hu Jintao sought Thursday to reassure the international community over China's rising military strength before presiding over a naval display highlighting Beijing's ambitions of becoming a major sea power.

In remarks to U.S. and other foreign naval commanders, Hu repeated China's standard position that it would never threaten other nations or seek regional dominance.

China's military, including the fast modernizing navy, "will always be a force for the preservation of world peace and advancement of common development," Hu said.   more ...

China unveils its new naval clout

Asia Times
Apr 23, 2009
By Wu Zhong

HONG KONG - China will show off its nuclear-powered submarines for the first time in history on Thursday during a fleet parade to mark the 60th anniversary of the founding of the naval arm of the People's Liberation Army (PLAN).

The display of the country's most advanced submarines, as well as the parade itself which will feature 21 ships from 14 foreign countries including the United States and Russia, shows China's growing confidence in the rapid modernization of its navy.

The largest naval parade in the PLA's history is also a sign that Beijing is attaching increasing importance to the role of the navy, once considered the weakest of the three branches of the PLA. China's deployment of ships to the coast of Somalia to fight
pirates at the end of last year is regarded as a strategic change of the PLAN from a near-shore defensive force to a blue-water combat armada.

In an interview with the state-run Xinhua news agency, Vice Admiral Ding Yiping, PLAN's deputy commander, said the nuclear-powered submarines would appear at Thursday's fleet review in the northern port city of Qingdao.

"It is not a secret that China has nuclear submarines, which are key to safeguarding our country's national security," Ding said, adding that the number of China's nuclear submarines was far less than those of the US and Russia.

The 225,000-member PLAN operates up to 10 nuclear-powered submarines and as many as 60 diesel-electric vessels, more than any other Asian country. China's second-generation, nuclear-powered Jin- and Shang-class submarines are considered just a notch below cutting-edge US and Russian crafts.

Speculation has been rife as to whether President Hu Jintao, who will review the fleet parade in his capacity as chairman of the Central Military Commission, will take the opportunity to announce China's plan to build one or more aircraft carriers. A senior PLA official in Beijing said it was unlikely Hu would make the announcement. "It is no longer a secret that China wants to build aircraft carriers. There is no need to make a formal announcement on such things," said the official who declined to be named.

United States
chief of naval operations Admiral Gary Roughead downplayed concerns over China's plans for an aircraft carrier but said the US would like to have a better idea about the intentions behind China's naval modernization.    more ...

中国外商撤资逃债蔓延 逾半数夜半出逃

【正体版】 【打印机版】 【字号】大 中 小

【大纪元4月19日报导】（中央社台北19日电）中国最高人民法院副院长奚晓明表示，
外商撤资外逃及放弃企业逃债现象开始蔓延，逾半数外资选择“夜半出逃”方式。据统计，
去年2月至今年2月，法院受理这类案件数量同比上升19.62%。

香港“文汇报”报导，奚晓明日前指出，国际及中国宏观经济环境变化所引发的矛盾和纠纷，
在司法领域已经出现明显反映。

他认为，当前这类案件出现一些新的特点，如借款合同案件数量激增、买卖合同主动违约比例增大、
虚假贷款案件开始暴露、外商撤资外逃以及弃企逃债现象开始蔓延、企业改制遗留问题逐步暴露、
民营企业破产清算比例明显增多等。其中，逾半数外资选择“夜半出逃”方式。      http://epochtimes.com/gb/9/4/19/n2499781.htm

Foreign Capital Worries and Debt Dodging in China

Central News Agency
Apr 22, 2009

TAIPEI—Vice president of China's Supreme People's Court Xi Xiaoming said that more and more foreign capital are being withdrawn and many business owners that filed bankruptcy have fled from China to avoid debts. According to results from a survey, foreign capital related court cases increased 19.62 percent in February, compared to the same period last year.

Xi is quoted in Hong Kong’s "Wen Wei Po" stating that the conflicts and disputes caused by international and domestic macro-economic environmental changes have increased, and is clearly reflected in the judicial system.  Xi said the survey reveals the number of cases related to loans have increased dramatically. The portion of the cases involving intentional breach of contract increased as well. More fraudulent loan cases were reported.  more ...

Why Must This Two-Year Old Suffer?

The Epoch Times
By Ding Cheng
Epoch Times Staff Apr 21, 2009

Yu Jialiang is the two-year-old daughter of Beijing Falun Gong practitioners Yu Ping and Zhao Yumin. Little Jialiang should be living a happy and peaceful life with her loving family, but in the past year, she has witnessed the illegal arrest of both her parents. Now she suffers in a broken family without parents to care for her.

According to Clearwisdom.net, Jialiang’s father was pursuing his master’s degree in the Department of Thermal Engineering at Tsinghua University in 1995. In March 1997, he began to work on his doctorate degree ahead of schedule due to his outstanding accomplishments. During the course of his study, he was awarded a Siemens Scholarship.

In early June 2000, he successfully defended his doctoral dissertation, gaining the unanimous approval of the dissertation committee. The dissertation was also selected as an excellent thesis.

However, despite his academic achievements he was never awarded the PhD degree—because of his spiritual beliefs.

Since July 20, 1999, the Chinese communist regime led by Jiang Zemin has staged a reckless campaign of suppression against the spiritual group Falun Gong. Jialiang’s parents went to Tiananmen Square seven times to appeal for an end to the persecution of this peaceful practice.

Because of Yu’s involvement with Falun Gong, Tsinghua University refused to grant Yu Ping a doctoral degree. At that time, he managed to obtain a full scholarship from Ohio State University; but the regime illegally detained and incarcerated Yu, so he lost the chance to study aboard.

In November 2000, local police officers searched the Yu home and arrested Yu Ping and Zhao Yumin. Yu Ping was sentenced to four years and detained in Qianjin Prison in Tianjin City. Zhao Yumin was detained at Beijing Women’s Prison.

After four arduous years of torture and incarceration, Jialiang’s parents were finally released and returned home. Later Jialiang was born into this happy family.

However, the good times didn’t last long. Prior to the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the Chinese authorities increased the persecution of Falun Gong and arrested many Falun Gong practitioners. According to incomplete statistics, from the end of 2007 to June 30, 2008, more than 8037 Falun Gong practitioners were illegally detained or arrested, especially in Beijing, including Jialiang’s parents.

On April 19, 2008, at around 4 p.m., some seven or eight policemen from local police stations in Chaoyang District broke into Jialiang’s home, forcefully arrested Jialiang’s parents, along with their grandmother and aunt. Then one-year-old Jialiang was extremely terrified, and cried aloud when watching her family being taken away from her.   more ...

No accounting for China's accountability

SUN WUKONG
Apr 22, 2009
By Wu Zhong, China Editor

HONG KONG - The soft treatment given to a food safety official in the wake of last September's melamine-tainted infant milk scandal has re-awakened the Chinese public's anger at how authorities dealt with those responsible for the incident.

At the center of the scandal, which left six children dead and 300,000 ill, was the now-bankrupt Sanlu Group in Shejiazhuang, the provincial capital of Hebei. It was found to have added melamine, a raw material used in the plastics industry, into baby formula to seemingly boost its "protein" content.

The scandal, which came right after the success of the Beijing Summer Olympic Games, shocked the nation and the central

leadership. Premier Wen Jiabao personally visited sick children in a Beijing hospital and convened two special cabinet meetings to deal with the aftermath. To ease growing public anger and appease parents, he solemnly pledged officials found responsible would be "seriously dealt with".

In late September, Li Changjiang was forced to resign as minister in charge of the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (AQSIQ), the country's top food safety watchdog. Several Shijiazhuang officials were sacked or forced to step down.

In January, a court sentenced Tian Wenhua, a former chairwoman of Sanlu Group, to life imprisonment. Other Sanlu executives were also given jail terms. After a six-month investigation, the Ministry of Supervision announced in late March that eight senior officials from AQSIA and Ministries of Agriculture and Health would be disciplined.

One of the eight, Bao Junkai, then deputy head of AQSIA's Department of Supervision on Food Production, was given a gross demerit - the most severe disciplinary punishment next to demotion or dismissal.

However, only a few weeks later, Chinese media revealed that Bao had been appointed as director and party chief of Anhui Provincial Entry-Exit Inspection and Quarantine Bureau.    more ...

China automakers focus on hybrid and electric vehicles

USAToday
March 20, 2009

By Elaine Kurtenbach, The Associated Press
SHANGHAI — As global automakers agonize about survival strategies, China's upstarts are racing to launch homegrown hybrid and electric vehicles in the only major auto market still growing.

Shanghai's biennial auto show, which opens Monday, will showcase these "new energy" vehicles, as the Chinese call them, alongside a cornucopia of conventional compacts, luxury and midrange vehicles.

No purely electric vehicles, apart from a few experimental buses, are on Chinese roads yet. Automakers still are working on developing products with prices and performance that are competitive with conventional cars.

Yet the focus on innovation reflects China's desire to curb its growing dependence on imported crude oil and to clear its polluted city skies. Beijing is plowing $1.5 billion into new energy vehicle technologies in the next three years.

"There's a lot of interest in electric vehicles because it's a technology that's emerging from China's strong research and development base for lithium-ion batteries," said Ray Bierzynski, vice president for engineering in the Asia-Pacific for General Motors. "China has grown very dramatically, but it still has a relatively young infrastructure, so the move to battery technology is very interesting for China."   more ...

China bosses told to cut salaries

Executives of state-owned banks and insurers in China have been told to cut their salaries to ease the disparity between themselves and Chinese workers.

BBC News
Friday, 10 April 2009 10:39 UK

A government directive said that individual financial enterprises paid top executives too much.

The ruling came amid growing concern about the economic downturn, which has put some 20 million people out of work.

Executive pay in China is modest by Western standards, but is many times that of ordinary workers.

The average employee in one of China's top financial institutions earns $58,500 (£40,000) - with those at the very top of these firms earning considerably more.

In Chinese cities the average employee earns about $2,200 (£1,500) a year. Those in rural areas far less, according to a survey by a Shanghai business magazine   more ...

Beaten and Broken

By Wang Meiling
Epoch Times Staff Apr 8, 2009

On the morning of April 4, retired Shandong University professor, Sun Wenguang, was followed by police, and later beaten by several unknown persons publicly. The attack resulted in three broken ribs. Sun has been admitted into hospital and is still under intensive care in Qilu Hospital, Jinan City.

On the evening of April 5, the 75 year old told an Epoch Times reporter in a phone interview, “I was beaten and am now in hospital … A few police officers followed me when I left the University on the morning of April 4, then several others pushed me down a two meter high hill and beat me in the park.”

Sun also confirmed, “They broke three of my ribs. It’s so painful. I haven’t slept for 36 hours. I can only lie in bed in one position.”    more ...

Two Tibetans sentenced to death

China has sentenced two men to death for deadly arson attacks during an uprising in Tibet a year ago.

BBC News
Wednesday, 8 April 2009 14:03 UK

These are the first definitive death sentences relating to the widespread riots in Lhasa last March.

The Chinese government says about 20 people were killed during the unrest while exiled Tibetan circles put the figure at more than 200.

Hundreds of people were arrested as a result of the riots and several have already received long jail terms.

Different versions

The two men sentenced to death played a part in starting fires which resulted in seven deaths and the destruction of five shops in Lhasa, Chinese state media report.    more ...

China PM shoe trial date changed

The trial of a man accused of harassing the Chinese Prime Minister has been rescheduled to avoid a clash with the anniversary of a student massacre.

BBC News
Tuesday, 7 April 2009 13:30 UK

Cambridge University researcher Martin Jahnke, 27, admits throwing a shoe at Wen Jiabao during his tour of Britain.

However, he has denied causing intentional harm or distress.

Magistrates in Cambridge have moved his trial forward to 1 June to avoid it ending on 4 June - the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square uprising.    more ...

Chinese Woman Forced to Have Sterilization

By Qiao Long
Radio Free Asia Apr 6, 2009

Gan Yulan, a woman from a small town in Jianxi Province of China, was blindfolded and forced to have a sterilization operation by local township officials on March 23. Gan told a reporter that she was assaulted by the deputy director of the Local People's Congress on the way to the hospital and was forced to be sterilized without any family members present.

Four officers took her into custody without showing any legal warrant. The officer who assaulted her on the way to the hospital was deputy director, Wang Xuebing. When asked why he hit her, Wang said: "You are nobody. I can do whatever I want to you."

When they got to the local hospital, she was forced undergo the procedure without any preliminary medical screening or family members presence. Wang didn't even allow her to go home after the procedure and told her that she had no other choice.   more ...

Unofficial Earthquake Student Death Toll Removed From Internet

By Qiao Long
Radio Free Asia Apr 5, 2009

Residents from the Sichuan area are holding memorial services on Tomb-sweeping Day for their loved ones who died in the May 22, 2008 earthquake in Wufu, Sichuan province, China. In most of the regions, such as Beichuan County and Dujiangyang, the services are held under police surveillance.

An unofficial figure based on incomplete statistics (collected up to the end of April 2) showed that over 4,100 students died in the earthquake. However, this figure was removed from the Internet (the limited sites available in mainland China) on April 3.

As Tomb-sweeping Day approaches, the quake victims’ families have been holding traditional memorial services such as burning incense and scattering ‘ghost money.’

Mr. Wang, a parent whose child went to Beichuan Middle School, told the reporter that the police have been keeping a close eye on the families of the deceased students fearing they would organize a protest.    more ...

Dalai Lama rival steps into spotlight

Tuesday, 31 March 2009 17:23 UK
By Michael Bristow
BBC News, Beijing

China has pushed a young bespectacled monk into the spotlight in an effort to show that it governs Tibet with a benign hand.

Officials have launched a vigorous propaganda battle over recent weeks, to demonstrate that Tibetans are thriving under Beijing's direction.

And the man China selected as its Panchen Lama, the second most important figure in Tibetan Buddhism, has been at the forefront of that campaign.

Although he is only 19, the Panchen Lama has already stepped onto the public stage to praise the Chinese Communist Party.

Tibet expert Professor Robert Barnett, of New York's Columbia University, says this is part of China's efforts to undermine the appeal of the Dalai Lama, the spiritual head of Tibetan Buddhism.

"He will never really replace the Dalai Lama, but his role confuses the picture and can gradually be used to weaken the Dalai Lama's standing," he said.

"I think [China's] Panchen Lama is being built up very gradually as a public spokesman within the Tibetan Buddhist world."     more ...

Holiday marks Tibet 'liberation'

BBC News
Saturday, 28 March 2009

The Chinese authorities have marked the inaugural "Serfs' Liberation Day" with ceremonies and speeches extolling the virtue of Chinese development in Tibet.

"Any plots to make Tibet independent... are bound to fail," said Zhang Qingli, Tibet's Communist Party chief.

The holiday, which marks the start of Beijing's direct rule of Tibet in 1959, was announced last year after Tibetans joined violent protests against China.

The Free Tibet group said all China had to offer was intensifying repression.

Beijing says it liberated Tibet from the dark ages, freeing the population from medieval-style feudal slavery and bringing prosperity to its people.

A crowd of more than 13,000 watched the Serf's Liberation Day ceremony in front of Tibet's famed Potala Palace. National television broadcast the 75-minute event live.

Nowadays we have roads, televisions and telephones... all made possible by the Communist Party
69-year-old Tibetan

A man describing himself as a former serf, a student and military officials joined Mr Zhang in praising the economic development brought by China and denouncing the exiled former Buddhist theocracy that ruled Tibet.

"Nowadays we have roads, we have televisions and telephones, children go to schools, and we have savings in the banks, all made possible by the Communist Party," said one Tibetan man who had been born into what he described as a serf family in 1940.

But critics of Beijing rule say Tibetans feel excluded from China's considerable economic investment in the region which has mainly benefited the Han Chinese who have migrated there in massive numbers.

The BBC's Quentin Sommerville in Beijing says 50 years of Chinese control has left Tibetans with little political or religious freedom.    more ...

YouTube blocked in China

CNN
March 25, 2009

BEIJING, China (CNN) -- China has blocked the popular video-sharing Web site YouTube but did not offer a reason for the ban.
A general screenshot of YouTube, which was blocked in China as of Wednesday.

Google, which owns YouTube, said it began noticing a decline in traffic from China about noon Monday.

By early Wednesday, site users insider China continued to encounter an error message: "Network Timeout. The server at youtube.com is taking too long to respond."

"We do not know the reason for the blockage and we are working as quickly as possible to restore access to our users," said Scott Rubin, a spokesman for Google, which owns YouTube.

It's not the first time users in China have been unable to access the site. In March 2008, China blocked YouTube during riots in Tibet. more ...

China athletes 'faked their age'

BBC News
Monday, 16 March 2009

Bone tests on teenage athletes in south China have shown that thousands had faked their age, often in order to keep competing in junior events. Tests on nearly 13,000 athletes found that more than 3,000 were older than their registered age, according to the Sports Bureau of Guangdong Province. At least one athlete was seven years older than their stated age, but most were said to differ by a year or two. The news comes as Guangdong prepares to host the 2010 Asian Games. The investigation is the latest in a number of initiatives by the Chinese authorities to crack down on the practice of age-faking, which many experts believe is rampant. more ...

China patrols in South China Seas

BBC News
Monday, 16 March 2009

One of China's largest fisheries patrol ships has arrived at the disputed Paracel Islands. The move comes after China protested to Manila over new legislation proclaiming Philippine sovereignty over parts of the disputed Spratly islands. Both the Paracels - known in China as Xisha - and the Spratlys are subject to overlapping claims. Separately, China and the US were involved in naval skirmishes last week off the Chinese island of Hainan. The China Daily said that the patrol ship, a retired Chinese navy rescue vessel, the China Yuzheng 311, set sail from Guangzhou last week and reached the Paracel island group during the weekend. more ...

Obama seeks to ease US-China row

BBC News
Thursday, 12 March 2009

US President Barack Obama has invited China's top diplomat to the White House in an effort to defuse tensions over a dispute in the South China Sea.

Mr Obama and Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi will discuss the issue and other economic matters, a US official said.

On Monday, the US said five Chinese ships had harassed an unarmed US navy surveillance vessel in a dangerous manner in international waters.

But Beijing accused the US of operating illegally in its maritime territory.

China called the US complaint "totally inaccurate" and accused it of breaking international law by operating in its Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). more ...

Whispers of the Dalai Lama

BBC News
James Reynolds
12 Mar 09, 09:08 GMT

This week marks the 50th anniversary of the Tibetan uprising which led to the exile of the Dalai Lama. Tibet's exiled leader has described the situation in his homeland as "hell on earth" - a characterisation rejected by China.

At the moment, China has stopped foreigners from travelling into Tibet, but many Tibetans also live in neighbouring Chinese provinces on the Tibetan plateau. These are the only Tibetan areas that we can try to visit.

But in recent days, the Chinese authorities have detained (and sometimes harassed) many foreign reporters who have tried to get to these areas.

Still, a few days ago, a colleague and I managed to get in and out of the Tibetan plateau without being arrested. Here's what we found. more ...

China factory output growth slows

Industrial production growth in China slowed in January and February, as the downturn in the world economy knocked demand for exports.

BBC News
Thursday, 12 March 2009

Output in the two months was up 3.8% from a year ago, against a 5.7% rise in December, official figures have shown.

China has been battered by a fall in demand for its goods, with exports falling a record 25.7% in February.

But there are signs that the government's stimulus package is having an impact as bank lending increased.

Production in February alone rose 11%, though this figure was flattered by the fact that February this year had five more working days than February last year because of the timing of the Chinese New Year holidays. more ...

Gao Zhisheng’s Wife and Children Arrive in the U.S.

Epoch Times Staff Mar 11, 2009

The wife and two children of famous Chinese human rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng arrived in the United States on Wednesday having successfully escaped from China.

Two organizations, Friends of Gao Zhisheng and the Global Association for the Rescue of Gao Zhisheng, indicated that Geng He and her children entered Thailand where they filed for asylum with the U.N. Refugee Agency.

They were accepted by the U.S. government and safely arrived in the United States today.

“This family needs a stable life. We are very happy the U.S. government has helped them,” said Sherry Zhang of Friends of Gao Zhisheng.

“This family has suffered greatly, particularly the daughter. She is a 16-year-old child who has suffered physical and mental abuse at the hands of the Chinese regime. The son is five and one-half years old, and has also suffered. He tends to be very emotional,” she said. more ...

Breaking Away from Communism

By Lian Xing
Epoch Times Staff Mar 11, 2009

Several years ago, Mr. Wang from Liaoning Province suddenly lost his land, along with the 300,000 farmers from his hometown, over a buyout.

This year, on January 21, Mr. Wang denounced the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

For many years, the complaints have gone nowhere. Mr. Wang said furiously, “The CCP has lost our trust. It is too corrupt. The regime is like the current Chinese economy. On the surface, it seems developing. In fact, it is a bubble. Soon, the bubble will break and disappear. We all want to break away from the CCP. Only then will we stay away from this hell-like life.”

Mr. Wang explained that the regime took away their forest land. People suffer and have no where to turn to. The officials are corrupt and covering for each other. He said, “For example, they took away our land that was worth 1000 yuan, and reimbursed 50 yuan. I went to Beijing four times to file complaints. But each department and division shirked the responsibility, including the committee for discipline investigation, the courts, the prosecutors, and so forth. The regime is totally dysfunctional. For example, I complained to the Forestry Department. What they did was issue a supervisory letter which was transferred from the province to the city, from the city to the county. Are they suggesting the county magistrate would supervise and sue himself? It’s impossible! The regime is simply corrupt, and trying to fool us!”

Mr. Wang indicated that over 300,000 farmers were victims of the buyout. The officials care about no one. He said, “The high officials are hiding in the back. They let the local cadres in the village decide how much the land is worth, and the ownership of the land. They could buy anything worth 100 yuan with just one yuan and you’ll find no justice. If you intend to complain to Beijing, they’ll cut you back before you reach the Letter and Petition Office in Beijing. No one will resolve it for you. At least 30 people have tried to visit Beijing during the two conferences (the National People’s Congress and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference).” more ...

China's SARS Hero Demands Apology

Reuters Mar 11, 2009

BEIJING—A military surgeon who blew the whistle on China's SARS cover-up in 2003 and asked the Communist Party to reassess its 1989 massacre of Tiananmen protesters has asked the government to apologise for detaining him.

Jiang Yanyong wrote to President Hu Jintao demanding an apology for time he spent confined in an army "guesthouse" and months under house arrest, according to a copy of the letter seen by Reuters. He also asked Hu to lift a ban on overseas travel.

There are no new revelations in the letter, but it is likely to upset the government by raising the sensitive Tiananmen protests just months before the 20th anniversary of the massacre of pro-democracy protesters, and as officials grapple with economic crisis. more ...

Activists 'shocked' at Clinton stance on China rights

Yahoo.com
Fri Feb 20, 1:29 pm ET

WASHINGTON (AFP) – Amnesty International and a pro-Tibet group voiced shock Friday after US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton vowed not to let human rights concerns hinder cooperation with China.

Paying her first visit to Asia as the top US diplomat, Clinton said the United States would continue to press China on long-standing US concerns over human rights such as its rule over Tibet.

"But our pressing on those issues can't interfere on the global economic crisis, the global climate change crisis and the security crisis," Clinton told reporters in Seoul just before leaving for Beijing. more ...

Cheats compete for top China jobs

BBC News, Shanghai
By Chris Hogg
Monday, 19 January 2009

In China about 1,000 entrants taking civil service entrance exams have been caught cheating, some of them using technology used by spies. More than 750,000 people applied for the 13,500 places available. A job in the civil service is highly sought after in China as government officials are powerful and often make a lot of money as a result. Across China people working in the private sector are losing their jobs as the economy flattens. There was a record number of applications this year for jobs in the public sector as it is seen as a safer place to work. But it is hard to get into the civil service. Fifty-seven people applied for each place on offer through the annual exams.

More than 300 applicants were caught cheating while completing their papers. Officials said some had planted tiny electronic receivers in their ears to pick up broadcasts from accomplices.    more ...

2nd bird flu case in China

Reuters
Jan 18, 2009

BEIJING - A TWO-YEAR-OLD girl has been confirmed to be infected with bird flu in north China's Shanxi Province, Xinhua news agency said on Sunday, citing a provincial government official, in the second case in as many weeks. The girl, surnamed Peng, was found ill on Jan 7 in central Hunan Province and was taken to hospital in Luliang City of Shanxi on Jan 11, Xinhua said, citing an unnamed official with the Shanxi provincial health department. The girl had tested positive for the H5N1 strain of avian influenza and 'was in critical condition', Xinhua cited the official as saying. 'All people who have had close contact with her are under strict medical observation ... Up to now, no abnormal symptoms have been found,' a statement on China's Health Ministry website said.       more ...

What Will Happen to RMB, the Chinese Currency? (Part 1)

By Lou Xinhui
Epoch Times Staff Jan 18, 2009

Whether the Chinese RMB will appreciate or depreciate is an important subject. There are various predications about its trend. This article is a systematic analysis of the past of the RMB.
The RMB in the Past Thirty Years

From 1978 to 1993, in order to stimulate export, Chinese authorities exercised a double-track foreign exchange policy, with implementation of foreign exchange quota and tight control. Up to 1994 due to the huge difference between the foreign exchange market and the Chinese official market, Chinese businesses did not want to sell its foreign exchange reserve to commercial banks, causing high foreign exchange reserve and shortage of foreign exchange in the government. In 1994 the Chinese authorities started to exercise the unification of exchange rates, which is a floating exchange rate system with intervention by the government called “Dirty Float.”

In 1997 when the Asian Financial crisis happened, Chinese authorities declared that the RMB would not devalue. As a result, the RMB adopted fixed rate against the U.S. Dollar. Although the Chinese government did not officially announce this, the RMB rate against the US Dollar did not change for a long time.

The RMB would have appreciated a long time ago according to the market rule. However, since China’s economic growth is mainly achieved by the growth on export, the Chinese government suppressed the RMB’s appreciation in order to maintain its high growth rate, and consequently faced high pressure from the international society.

During the meeting participated by the seven developed countries in Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in February 2002, Japan’s Minster of Finance Masajiro Shiokawa submitted a bill to the other six countries suggesting appreciation of the RMB. In mid 2003, U.S. Treasury Secretary Snow and Chairman of Federal Reserve Alan Greenspan expressed that the RMB should be more flexible. Some U.S. economists estimated that the RMB was about 15-50 percent undervalued. more ... 

Corrupt Officials Seize Sichuan Earthquake Relief Funds

By Dong Fang
VOA News Jan 10, 2009

According to a recent report of China’s National Audit Office (NAO), there has been concern that corrupt officials misused earthquake relief funds in Sichuan, one of China's southwestern provinces struck by an earthquake on May 12, 2008, leaving more than 87,000 people dead or missing. Hong Kong media also reported similar concerns of misuse of relief money, false disaster reports and corruption of local officials. Some Chinese scholars commented that the brazen corruption of Chinese local officials results from the lack of grassroots and media supervision in China’s political system, and proves that top-down efforts alone cannot effectively combat corruption.

By the end of November 2008, the NAO had received a total of 1962 reports of cases of corruption, and transferred 146 of them to the discipline inspection and auditing departments with 162 people involved, according to China’s State media, Xinhua News Agency.       more ...

China officials 'lost millions'

BBC News
Saturday, 10 January 2009

Officials from China's southern Guangdong province are reported to have gambled away more than $3m (£2m) of public money in recent years. Chinese media reports said more than 50 officials had been investigated and six had been jailed or punished. The officials lost the money gambling at casinos in Macau, on cruise ships off Hong Kong, and betting on football matches, reports said.

President Hu Jintao has said battling corruption is a key priority. more ...

Violent Relocation and Demolition Using Sulfuric Acid in Yangzhou

By Ye Bing
VOA News Jan 9, 2009

Washington D.C.—In Yangzhou City, China, two elderly women locked themselves inside a cage to avoid being driven from their land as a consequence of forced eviction and demolition. According to relatives of the women, both were injured and one suffered second degree burns when they were sprayed with sulfuric acid by thugs hired by the relocation business. They were then harassed by officials from the department of City Administrations.

The Tianbaocheng Silver House in Yangzhou, Jiangsu Province is a privately owned three-story building with over 100 years of history. One year ago, before any agreement with the property owners had been signed, a real estate developer forcefully demolished the building in the middle of the night. The property owners Jin Lanying and her sister-in-law Ju Wenzhen are both over 60 years old. When the developer tried to force the two women to leave, they saw no other option but to lock themselves inside a large cage which they had built on their property.

According to Ju’s son Jin Zhen, on November 3, 2008, hired thugs kidnapped his mother and aunt and took them to a location about 300 to 400 meters away from their property. Jin said: “They then used a bulldozer to dig up our land, preparing to lay pipes.”

On December 3, they hired over 100 thugs wearing safety hats and pretending to be construction workers. They all carried spray cans, and without warning sprayed my mother and aunt with sulfuric acid.”

In self-defense, the ladies opened a gas cylinder, which is normally used for cooking and water heating, and flames shot into the sky. People at the scene who had tried to videotape what was happening were attacked and beaten by thugs.

Jin’s aunt Jin Lanying was injured from the attack and was diagnosed with second-degree burns.

After last year’s incident, Jin’s family appealed and complained to the police department and the courts many times. Their complaints and appeals were ignored. Yet Yangzhou City authorities demanded that they remove the banners that they had hung on their cage. The banners contained slogans supporting Hu Jintao’s policy of land acquisition and resettlement.       more ...

China warns on fake yuan currency

BBC News
Friday, 9 January 2009

China's central bank has issued a warning about fake bank notes ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday. The bank said 100-yuan notes bearing the "HD90" serial number have been reported in 10 provinces. They have also been found in Hong Kong. A People's Bank of China statement said low-quality counterfeit detectors did not always manage to spot the fakes.

But it said the telltale signs could be spotted with the naked eye, and urged people to be vigilant. "Though mostly counterfeit 100-yuan notes [worth $14.60] are not too hard to make out, people should be careful as cash transactions during the Spring Festival are high," the bank statement said.       more ...

Veteran Chinese activist jailed

BBC News
Thursday, 8 January 2009

A veteran democracy activist in China has been sentenced to six years in jail for helping set up an opposition party, activists and supporters have said. A court in Hangzhou sentenced Wang Rongqing on charges of "subversion of state power", according to the China Human Rights Defenders. Wang had helped to set up a political group called the China Democratic Party in the late 1990s.

China's ruling Communist Party does not allow challenges to its monopoly. It does allow a few alternative parties, but they have to be officially recognised by the government and serve as advisers to the Communist Party rather than competing against it. more ...

Why China's milk industry went sour

By Vaudine England
BBC News, Hong Kong
00:30 GMT, Monday, 29 September 2008 01:30 UK

It did not take long for the euphoria of the Beijing Olympics to fade.

China's failure to produce good milk has killed at least four babies, and sickened many thousands of others.   Domestic and export markets in anything that might contain Chinese milk powder are stymied, and scores of dairy firms have gone to the wall.   The still unravelling saga has reduced China's reputation for food safety - and manufacturing integrity - to its lowest level in years.

Experts in the industry say the problems start at source - the cows.   Most farmers are poor and do not eat well - and neither do their cows. Average herds of just three to five cows are often kept in substandard, filthy conditions.   But bigger problems occur as the milk moves through the production chain.

Squeezed on price

The farmers have few means to monitor the quality of the milk they are producing. And their small business size gives them little ability to influence the market.   First they dilute the raw milk with water to increase its volume, often up to about 30 percent

Ins and outs

The farmers have no bargaining power when they sell the milk to middlemen, who are usually independent and unregulated.   The farmers get squeezed on price yet are under constant pressure to produce more milk.   So in order to meet the booming industry's gulping demands, and to cope with the ever lower prices paid for raw milk to smallholders, the milk is bulked up.   Several experts on the Chinese milk industry say this is where the additive process begins.       more ...

Cadbury recalls Chinese chocolate

British chocolate-maker Cadbury is recalling its Chinese-made products over fears of possible contamination.

BBC Newss
13:23 GMT, Monday, 29 September 2008 14:23 UK

At least 50,000 Chinese babies have been sickened and four killed by milk tainted with the chemical melamine.

Cadbury officials did not say whether traces of melamine had been found in the firm's products, but said tests had "cast doubt" on their safety.

The firm is recalling products in mainland China as well as Hong Kong, Taiwan and Australia.

China's reputation for food safety has nosedived since the revelations last month that milk products poisoned by melamine were responsible for causing renal problems in babies who drank the milk formula.      more ...

China inspects dairy farms over baby formula

cnn.com
updated 1:44 a.m. EDT, Mon September 15, 2008

BEIJING, China (AP) -- China's food safety watchdog sent inspectors to the country's main dairy producing regions on Sunday after at least 432 babies were sickened by tainted milk powder produced by a Chinese company.

Officials have defended their response to China's latest product safety disaster, saying that authorities have detained 19 people and are questioning 78 others about how the banned chemical melamine was added to milk sold to Sanlu Group Co., China's biggest milk powder producer.

The government is sending groups of officials to Hebei, Guangdong and Heilongjiang provinces and the Inner Mongolia region to inspect dairy companies, the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine said.    more ...

Large Protests in China’s Hunan Province

Protesters allege to be victims of illegal fund raising

Epoch Times
September 8, 2008

A large protest broke out on September 4 in Jishou City, Hunan Province. According to a witness, nearly 100,000 people were involved. Protesters blocked all major roads and filled train stations, causing trains to stop and delayed many passengers. Jishou City locates in the West of Hunan Province, next to Hubei Province, Chongqing City of Sichuan Province and Guizhou Province. It is the capital city of Xiangxi Tu Ethnic Group Autonomous Prefecture.

The protests were quelled by military police together with traffic police, civil police and fire fighters. Dozens of people were arrested. It is uncertain if any deaths or injuries occurred in the unrest.
The protesters allege to be victims of illegal fund raising. According to sources claiming to be insiders in some of the fraud schemes, since 2004, market developers in the region offered investors a monthly interest rate of three percent, and later up to as high as 10 percent. Within a short period of time a large amount of investment from people and business was raised. It is said this trading was permitted and encouraged by local officials who hoped the short-term market boom would give their administration the appearance of success. Some officials of the autonomous prefecture also became underhanded shareholders and worked together with the developers to put the fund into investment.        more ...

China to top Asian consumer markets in 2009

19:50, September 08, 2008
People's Daily Online

By 2009 China will become the largest consumer market in Asia said Chinese Minister of Commerce Chen Deming.

Speaking at the 12th Xiamen International Trade and Investment Fair on Monday in the east Fujian Province, Chen predicted entertainment, housing and tourism will expand their shares in the domestic market.

"As one of the world's fastest growing consumer markets, China is a world leader in mobile phone sales, domestic tourism, and broadband network penetration," said Chen.      more ...

20,000 Chinese SWAT Officers Deployed to Hunan to Monitor Protesters

By Gu Qinger and Hu Tongcai
Epoch Times StaffSep 7, 2008Share: Facebook Digg

On September 4, almost 100,000 Jishou City residents joined together for a protest regarding money loaned to businesses that had became insolvent.

The government-supported loan scheme had encouraged prefecture-level and city-level government officials to invest in long-term, high-interest rate loans for local corporations and business people.

The problems began in early August when investors were tipped off that the businesses were insolvent.

Investors started withdrawing their investments and in less than two weeks had withdrawn nearly 10 billion yuan from the loan scheme (approx. US$1.5 billion), causing the corporations to become completely insolvent. The loan scheme was worth nearly 7 billion yuan (US$1 billion).

Authorities have responded to the protest by sending 20,000 Chinese SWAT officers into the city. Nine of the main coordinators of the protest have been arrested, and the 20,000 officers remain stationed in the city.      more ...

China sets dates for space launch

By Paul Rincon
Science reporter, BBC News
last updated at 17:49 GMT, Sunday, 7 September 2008 18:49 UK

China has already launched two manned flights
China will launch its third manned space mission in late September, state-run news agency Xinhua reports.
The Shenzhou VII flight will feature China's first ever space walk, which will be broadcast live with cameras inside and outside the spacecraft.
Three "yuhangyuan" (astronauts) will blast off on a Long-March II-F rocket sometime between 25 and 30 September. Previous reports in state media had put the launch in October, possibly during the National Day holiday.      more ...

Landslide in China leaves 26 dead

BBC News - Page last updated at 11:56 GMT, Monday, 8 September 2008 12:56 UK

At least 26 people were killed when a landslide swept through a warehouse in central China, state media said.
The accident happened early on Monday in Shanxi province's Linfen city.
A torrent of rocks and mud hit a warehouse at the Tashan mine, causing it to collapse, Xinhua news agency said.    more ...

Chinese Rights Advocate Tortured in Captivity

By Yu Hang
Sound of Hope Radio Aug 4, 2008

In the shadow of a Beijing Olympics touted as a harbinger of change and human rights improvements, a well-placed informant from China disclosed to Sound of Hope Radio (SOH) the painful plight of renowned Chinese human rights attorney Gao Zhisheng since his disappearance a year ago.

The anonymous insider told SOH in a telephone interview that Gao, after his mysterious disappearance on September 22, 2007, was taken by the PRC police to a secret location where he suffered physical and psychological torture for nearly 60 days. The source said the level of torture was "beyond anyone’s imagination" and even the police executing the torture admired Gao’s uncompromising spirit.

While recounting the tortures inflicting on Gao, the insider souce said [transcribed from the telephone recording], “For example, they stripped attorney Gao Zhisheng naked, threw him to the ground and attacked him with electric batons. They deprived him of sleep. This is very common. It goes without saying that they beat him up as well. They have resorted to lowly, despicable means.”

The insider added that they tortured Gao Zhisheng to make him do three things. First, to make him write an article condemning Falun Gong. Second, to make him write articles condemning the founder of Falun Gong. Third, to make him write articles praising the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). more ...

Limits to China's pledge of change

China promised an open Olympics for the media, and to promote human rights and democracy, in its bid for the Games. To see if it was true to its word, BBC Panorama reporter John Sweeney spent five weeks criss-crossing the country, following the torch relay.

BBC News
updated at 11:10 GMT, Sunday, 3 August 2008 12:10 UK

Fang Zheng is the kind of person who sums up the Olympic ideal. He lost his legs in what was, officially, a "traffic accident" and subsequently won golds in an all-China competition.

But when the torch came through his home town of Hefei, he was not there.

Fang's story tells you something about just how open modern China is.

"It wasn't a traffic accident," he told me. "The truth is that on June 4th 1989 when I was withdrawing from Tiananmen Square, I was chased from behind by a tank and both of my legs were crushed."

The 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre is still officially taboo in China. Hundreds died - nobody knows how many - but effective censorship means that millions of Chinese know nothing about it.

Fang, 41, continued: "When the tank crushed me, I was still conscious and I could see the white bones of my legs."     more ...

Hundreds of migrant workers attack police station in China

Posted 7/14/2008 5:20 AM
USA Today

SHANGHAI (AP) — Hundreds of migrant workers angry over mistreatment of a fellow worker surrounded a police station in eastern China and smashed cars and motorbikes, a Hong Kong-based human rights organization said Monday.

The three days of rioting began Thursday in Kanmen town in coastal Zhejiang province, according to the Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy.

The deputy director of the public security bureau in Yuhuan county, which oversees Kanmen, played down the incident. Wen Zhengui also denied that anyone had been killed in the violence, responding to a question from a reporter about rumors that two people had died.      more ......

China dissident Huang 'arrested'

BBC News
Page last updated at 16:08 GMT, Monday, 16 June 2008 17:08 UK

The mother of a dissident Chinese web journalist who vanished last week says he has been taken into police custody.  Huang Qi had not been seen or heard from since he was bundled into a car in Chengdu, the capital of the quake-hit province of Sichuan, last Tuesday.

It is thought Mr Huang may have been detained for posting an article about an academic held for criticising the government's response to the quake.  Mr Huang finished a five-year jail term for subversion in 2005.  He had allowed articles about China's 1989 pro-democracy protests to appear on his website, 64Tianwang.  Since his release, he has resumed his campaigning work, setting up the Tianwang human-rights centre.       more ...

China Says Arms Bound for Zimbabwe May Be Recalled

By REUTERS
Published: April 22, 2008

BEIJING, April 22 (Reuters) - China said on Tuesday a shipment of weapons bound for Zimbabwe may head back after the vessel was unable to unload, but defended the cargo as "perfectly normal trade".

Zambia's president urged regional states on Monday to bar the An Yue Jiang from entering their waters, saying the weapons could deepen Zimbabwe's election crisis. The ship already failed to unload its cargo in South Africa, and Mozambique and Angola have denied it access to their ports.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said the contract for the shipment was signed last year and was "unrelated to recent developments" in Zimbabwe.

Jiang said the arms shipment was "perfectly normal trade in military goods between China and Zimbabwe", but because it was impossible for Zimbabwe to receive the goods, the company involved is now considering shipping the cargo back.    more ...

China Condemns Dalai Lama Honor

By REUTERS
Published: April 22, 2008

BEIJING, April 22 (Reuters) - China condemned on Tuesday Paris's decision to make the Dalai Lama an honorary citizen, warning that the gesture had damaged ties with France just as both nations were seeking to ease bad blood over protests.

Relations between France and China were strained by Tibet protests that disrupted the passage of the Beijing Olympic Games torch through Paris earlier this month.

Angry Chinese citizens have responded by urging boycotts of French goods and companies, especially the retailer Carrefour.

As French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Chinese President Hu Jintao were seeking to heal rifts by sending envoys to each other, Paris city hall on Monday honoured the Dalai Lama, the exiled Buddhist leader whom China blames for unrest in Tibetan areas.

The Dalai Lama, who fled into exile in 1959, has long called for greater Tibetan autonomy and freedom. He says he opposes violent protest and demands for outright Tibetan independence, but China calls him a hypocrite.       more.....

China 'must not return N Koreans'

BBC Newss
Wednesday, 16 April 2008 07:15 UK

The US has urged China to stop repatriating North Korean refugees because of concerns over how the returnees are treated.

Those suspected of converting to Christianity or of meeting South Korean Christians face severe persecution, a report by a government commission said.  The treatment was part of Pyongyang's efforts to prevent the spread of religion, the report said.  The study was by the US Commission on International Religious Freedom.  Entitled "A Prison Without Bars", it was based on interviews with 32 refugees and six North Korean security agents who had defected.

'Torture and prison'

According to the commission, there is a pressing need for action to address the repression of religious freedom and other human rights in North Korea.  It described the forced repatriation of refugees from China as "an issue of special concern".    more ...

China 'now top carbon polluter'

By Roger Harrabin
BBC Environment analyst

China has already overtaken the US as the world's "biggest polluter", a report to be published next month says.

The research suggests the country's greenhouse gas emissions have been underestimated, and probably passed those of the US in 2006-2007.

The University of California team will report their work in the Journal of Environment Economics and Management.

They warn that unchecked future growth will dwarf any emissions cuts made by rich nations under the Kyoto Protocol.

The team admit there is some uncertainty over the date when China may have become the biggest emitter of CO2, as their analysis is based on 2004 data.      Until now it has been generally believed that the US remains "Polluter Number One".      more ...

Chinese Relentlessly Patrol A Subdued but Jittery Lhasa

Special to The Washington Post
Tuesday, April 15, 2008; Page A01

LHASA, China -- Two elderly Tibetan women lay prostrate before the Potala Palace on a recent day, venerating the 1,000-room hilltop monument that was once the seat of an independent Tibetan government and the Dalai Lama's winter residence.

About 30 feet away, two helmeted Chinese guards observed the display of traditional Buddhist devotion. Elsewhere in the Tibetan capital, other guards barred entrance to the city's most celebrated temples. Residents moved about their business, nervous and subdued.

One month after the explosion of violence that catapulted remote Tibet into the international spotlight, protests over Chinese policies here continue to unfold in many parts of the world, undermining China's effort to make the 2008 Beijing Olympics a display of progress at home and amity abroad. But here in Lhasa, the most visible outcome has been relentless street patrols by men in People's Armed Police uniforms who carry automatic rifles, check Tibetans' identification cards at random, and guard intersections and gasoline stations.       more ...

A new era or a 'made in China' affair?

Asia Times - Apr 15, 2008
By Ting-I Tsai

TAIPEI - It may have been somewhat of a coincidence that Taiwan's vice president-elect, Vincent Siew, of the Kuomintang party (KMT) met with Chinese President Hu Jintao on Saturday, just three weeks after he was elected, on the sidelines of the Boao Forum for Asia in China's island province of Hainan.  But their brief encounter had all the trappings of a major political summit because of the frosty relationship that has existed between the two archrivals across the Taiwan Strait over past decade.

Some believe the meeting marked the beginning of a new era in   cross-strait relations but critics branded it as nothing more than a staged show that was not in Taiwan's interests.  Siew, who will be sworn in along with president-elect Ma Ying-jeou on May 20 after the two won the island's presidential election on March 22 with a pledge for closer ties with mainland China, described his trip as "ice melting" in cross-strait relations and an occasion to reach out to the international community.

For China, the meeting afforded an opportunity to demonstrate its peaceful side amid escalating tensions in Tibet and Xinjiang and major disturbances of the 2008 Summer Olympic Games torch relay as it passes around the world. Some analysts in Taiwan contended the Hu-Siew meeting on the Boao Forum was more like a staged show directed by Beijing.          more ...

Beijing to Halt Construction Ahead of Olympics

The New York Times
By ANDREW JACOBS
Published: April 15, 2008

BEIJING — Officials laid out an ambitious series of measures on Monday that will freeze construction projects, slow down steel production and shut down quarries in and around the capital this summer in an attempt to clear the air for the Olympics. Even spray painting outdoors will be banned during the weeks before and after sporting events, which begin Aug. 8.

Although officials initially suggested the city’s wholesale transformation would be complete long before the opening ceremonies, the announcement nonetheless represents the most detailed possible plan for how Beijing might reach its long-standing pledge to stage “green Games” in one of the world’s most polluted cities. In earlier proclamations, officials had said that the city’s makeover would be competed by the end of 2007.

The measures announced Monday include a two-month halt in construction, beginning July 20, and government directives will force coal-burning power plants to reduce their emissions by 30 percent throughout most of the summer. Officials said that 19 heavy-polluting enterprises, including steel mills, coke plants and refineries, would be either temporarily mothballed or forced to reduce production.

Gas stations that do not meet environmental standards will be closed, cement production will stop, and the use of toxic solvents outdoors will be forbidden.       more ...

China Demographic Crisis: Too Many Boys, Elderly

NPR
Lindsay Mangum, NPR

Morning Edition, April 14, 2008 · It has been three decades since China's one-child policy was introduced as a temporary measure to slow the country's population growth. But there's rising opposition to the policy amid criticism that it's creating another demographic crisis.

The trends are exemplified in the city of Shanghai, which has the lowest birth rate and the highest proportion of seniors in China.

As two-year-old Maomao and her 10-month-old brother Lulu play in a Shanghai park, little do they realize they're a departure from three decades of strict family planning. Although many rural Chinese have two children, China still limits most urban families to just one child.

Because Maomao and Lulu's parents are both only-children themselves, they're among the privileged few city dwellers allowed to have two kids.

"I was lonely as a child," says their mother Zara, who didn't want her full name to be used. "I was jealous of friends who had brothers and sisters. Now my friends are envious of my two children."

Figures bear this out: A poll last year showed 69 percent of Chinese would support a proposal to abolish the one-child policy.

Zara has come to the park with her mother-in-law, and her 81-one-year-old mother-in-law. All of them support China's efforts to control its population.

"Our leaders have thought a lot about the country's policies," the 81-year-old matriarch says. "Whatever they say is right."

'Abnormal' Sex Ratio at Birth

However, demographic scholars aren't so sure. Some academics now believe the simplistic thinking behind the one-child policy could be responsible for a looming demographic crisis.

Among them is Peng Xizhe, dean of social development and public policy at Fudan University       more ...

IOC chief: Olympics in 'crisis' over torch chaos

Rogge tells China to respect vow to improve human rights, open up media

New York Times
April 10, 2008

BEIJING - IOC president Jacques Rogge said Thursday the turmoil surrounding the Beijing torch relay and the politically charged buildup to the Summer Games posed a "crisis'' for the Olympic movement.

Rogge urged China to respect its "moral engagement'' to improve human rights and to fulfill promises of greater media freedom. He reaffirmed the right of free speech for athletes at the Beijing Games.

At the same time, the International Olympic Committee expressed relief that the San Francisco leg of the torch relay passed off without major incident and declared that the rest of the international route would not be cut short or canceled.        more ...

Monks Disrupt Media Tour in China

New York Times
By JIM YARDLEY and JAKE HOOKER
Published: April 10, 2008

BEIJING — China suffered another unexpected public relations setback on Wednesday when Buddhist monks interrupted a government-managed news media tour in western China by waving a Tibetan flag and protesting that the authorities were depriving them of their human rights.

Tibetan monks held a sign that read, “We do not have freedom of speech,” and shouted slogans as reporters arrived Wednesday at Labrang Monestary in Xiahe, China, on a government tour.

The disruption, in Xiahe, a city in Gansu Province, was the second in which monks had upstaged government efforts to control tours of Tibetan areas for foreign journalists.

Last month, several monks in Lhasa, the Tibetan capital, risked official punishment when they made an emotional appeal to foreign

journalists inside the Jokhang Monastery, one of the city’s holiest shrines.

The outburst on Wednesday occurred as authorities guided reporters through the Labrang Monastery. The tour was the first officially approved visit to Xiahe by foreign reporters since monks and other Tibetans in the city clashed with the police last month. During the tour, about 15 monks rushed out, waving a Tibetan flag, and approached a group of about 20 Chinese and foreign reporters.

“The Dalai Lama has to come back to Tibet,” one monk said, according to Reuters, which was invited on the tour. “We are not asking for Tibetan independence; we are just asking for human rights. We have no human rights now.”

Several monks draped their heads in robes, Reuters reported, possibly in an attempt to conceal their identities and avoid later punishment. The monks also said that local authorities were holding other monks and that armed plainclothes security officers were posted around the city.       more ...

Olympic Torch Goes Out, Briefly, in Paris

New York Times
By KATRIN BENNHOLD and ELISABETH ROSENTHAL
Published: April 8, 2008

PARIS — China dubbed its Olympic torch relay the “Journey of Harmony,” a 21-nation promotional tour for the most expensive Games the world has seen and for a host nation eager to showcase its rising wealth and diplomatic clout.

But what was supposed to be a majestic procession through the French capital resulted in waves of chaos on Monday, as human rights groups used the event to assail China’s record on rights and make the Olympic Games an increasingly delicate political challenge for the governing Communist Party.

China has spent eight years and tens of billions of dollars preparing to host the Summer Games, which Beijing has envisioned as a kind of coming-of-age party to showcase its rapid growth. But the outbreak of violent unrest in Tibet and a continuing crackdown there by Chinese security forces has emboldened China’s critics, a diverse coalition of rights groups whose demands are often ignored in China and played down by Western leaders eager to promote Chinese trade and investment.     more ...

Father 'caught bird flu from son'

BBC News
Tuesday, 8 April 2008 09:02 UK

Tests on a father diagnosed with bird flu in China show he probably caught the disease from his dying son.  Scientists are concerned that if the virus evolves to pass easily from human to human millions could be at risk.  A genetic analysis of the Chinese case published in The Lancet found no evidence to suggest the virus had gained that ability.  But an expert has warned that failure to control outbreaks of disease in poultry is fuelling the risk to humans.  

Writing in The Lancet, Dr Jeremy Farrar, of Vietnam's Hospital for Tropical Diseases, said: "Whatever the underlying determinants, if we continue to experience widespread, uncontrolled outbreaks of H5N1 in poultry, the appearance of strains well adapted to human beings might just be matter of time."      more ...

In France, Olympic Torch Extinguished During Protests

By John Ward Anderson and Molly Moore
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, April 7, 2008; 2:34 PM

PARIS, April 7 -- Protesters halted the Olympic torch relay in Paris Monday, forcing officials to extinguish the flame at least three times and carry the torch inside a bus for safety, despite a massive deployment of 3,000 police across the heart of the city.

The heavy security presence transformed the torch relay from a joyous celebration of the Olympics into a tense confrontation between police and demonstrators protesting China's crackdown on Tibet last month and its human rights record.

By late afternoon Paris time, with the relay hours behind schedule and facing continuous stops by protesters, officials gave up on finding a way to restart the procession. They said the torch would be carried by bus for the rest of the route, from the National Assembly building to the Stade de France sports complex, a distance of about 3.5 miles.

The decision was made by Olympic organizers and the Chinese Embassy, police in Paris said.

During the first part of the procession, athletes were surrounded by so much security they could barely run with the torch, and police scuffled with pro-Tibet demonstrators along much of the parade route.       more .....

Military Ransack Tibetan Temple in Sichuan Province, China

By Feng Changle
The Epoch Times
Apr 05, 2008

On 29 March 2008, the Chinese Communist Party's military police surrounded Kyidi Temple, the largest temple in the Aba autonomous region in Sichuan Province.

According to Mr. Sonam Dorje, Secretary General of the Tibet Religious Foundation of the Dalai Lama, the police broke into the temple in the early morning of 30 March and confiscated knives, swords, and arrows.

Mr. Sonam Dorje said, "In the morning on March 30, military police broke into the Temple and searched every monk's room. Afterwards, the police went to the Guardian Temple and confiscated exquisite divine instruments such as Tibetan knives, swords and arrows. These objects had been donated by the followers, but were taken as 'evidence.'"      more ...  
Click here to read this article in Chinese

China pay row pilots 'turn back'

A row over pay at several Chinese airlines has seen pilots disrupt flights, according to state media.

BBC News
Thursday, 3 April 2008 10:44 UK

At China Eastern Airlines, 14 pilots turned back mid-flight blaming bad weather, despite other aircraft travelling normally, the reports said.

And there are claims that other pilots co-ordinated "sick days" - with about 40 Shanghai Airlines crew not coming to work on one day last month.

Jail for Chinese rights activist

BBC News
Thursday, 3 April 2008 07:59 UK

A prominent activist who publicised human rights abuses across China has been convicted of subversion and jailed for three-and-a-half years.  Hu Jia, 34, was convicted of "inciting subversion of state power and the socialist system", his lawyer said.  He has long campaigned for the environment, religious freedom and for the rights of people with HIV and Aids.  His sentence comes a day after a rights group accused China of a campaign to silence dissent ahead of the Olympics.

The US was "dismayed" by the verdict, a spokeswoman for the US embassy in Beijing said, while the European Union called for Mr Hu's immediate release.  "We said very clearly before the trial that he should not have been detained in the first place and that he should be released and this remains our position," Beijing spokesman William Fingleton told the French news agency AFP.     more ...

Repression continues in China, six months before Olympic Games

When the International Olympic Committee assigned the 2008 summer Olympic Games to Beijing on 13 July 2001, the Chinese police were intensifying a crackdown on subversive elements, including Internet users and journalists. Six years later, nothing has changed. But despite the absence of any significant progress in free speech and human rights in China, the IOC’s members continue to turn a deaf ear to repeated appeals from international organisations that condemn the scale of the repression.

From the outset, Reporters Without Borders has been opposed to holding the Olympic Games to Beijing. Now, a year before the opening ceremony, it is clear the Chinese government still sees the media and Internet as strategic sectors that cannot be left to the “hostile forces” denounced by President Hu Jintao. The departments of propaganda and public security and the cyber-police, all conservative bastions, implement censorship with scrupulous care.

Around 30 journalists and 50 Internet users are currently detained in China. Some of them since the 1980s. The government blocks access to thousands for news websites. It jams the Chinese, Tibetan and Uyghur-language programmes of 10 international radio stations. After focusing on websites and chat forums, the authorities are now concentrating on blogs and video-sharing sites. China’s blog services incorporate all the filters that block keywords considered “subversive” by the censors. The law severely punishes “divulging state secrets,” “subversion” and “defamation” - charges that are regularly used to silence the most outspoken critics. Although the rules for foreign journalists have been relaxed, it is still impossible for the international media to employ Chinese journalists or to move about freely in Tibet and Xinjiang.      more ...

Brit spies confirm Dalai Lama's report of staged violence

Canada Free Press
By Gordon Thomas

Britain's GCHQ, the government communications agency that electronically monitors half the world from space, has confirmed the claim by the Dalai Lama that agents of the Chinese People's Liberation Army, the PLA, posing as monks, triggered the riots that have left hundreds of Tibetans dead or injured.

GCHQ analysts believe the decision was deliberately calculated by the Beijing leadership to provide an excuse to stamp out the simmering unrest in the region, which is already attracting unwelcome world attention in the run-up to the Olympic Games this summer.

For weeks there has been growing resentment in Lhasa, Tibet's capital, against minor actions taken by the Chinese authorities.

Increasingly, monks have led acts of civil disobedience, demanding the right to perform traditional incense burning rituals. With their demands go cries for the return of the Dalai Lama, the 14th to hold the high spiritual office.

Committed to teaching the tenets of his moral authority---peace and compassion---the Dalai Lama was 14 when the PLA invaded Tibet in 1950 and he was forced to flee to India from where he has run a relentless campaign against the harshness of Chinese rule.

But critics have objected to his attraction to film stars. Newspaper magnate Rupert Murdoch has called him: "A very political monk in Gucci shoes."

Discovering that his supporters inside Tibet and China would become even more active in the months approaching the Olympic Games this summer, British intelligence officers in Beijing learned the ruling regime would seek an excuse to move and crush the present unrest.         more ...

Anti-Chinese cracks in Philippine rice bowls

Asia Times
By Donald Kirk
Apr 3, 2008

Anti-Chinese cracks in Philippine rice bowls:

Fast-rising rice prices in the Philippines are reinforcing the widespread belief that Filipino-Chinese rice barons are hoarding supplies in clandestine stockpiles around the country. The government has pledged to "hit the hoarders", but the issue continues to play into the deep anti-Chinese sentiments of a population that believes "rich Chinese" dominate just about every area of business and finance.

MANILA - Ask a woman named Cora why these days she has to spend so much more for rice for her food stand and family and she's got a fast racial response. "The Chinese are the ones," she said without hesitation. "They are handling all these things. They are the capitalists of the Philippines."

Shopping for the lowest prices in one of Manila's traditional markets, Cora blames "seven names" - the names of the Filipino-Chinese merchants who are widely accused of hoarding rice in order to reap higher and higher profits by driving up prices.     more ...

China’s Leader Orders Police to Ensure Olympic Security

The New York TimesBy HOWARD W. FRENCH
Published: April 2, 2008

SHANGHAI — The Chinese president, Hu Jintao, has ordered his nation’s security forces to place a top priority on the Olympic Games in August, saying that China’s international reputation is at stake.

China has increased its accusations that Tibetans are planning violent attacks in their quest for increased autonomy, which the Tibetans deny.

“Security must take priority,” Mr. Hu was quoted as saying in the People’s Armed Police News, published by China’s paramilitary police force. “Without security guarantees there cannot be a successful Olympic Games, and without security guarantees the national image will be lost.”

In one of the latest accusations, a spokesman for the Public Security Bureau, Wu Heping, said Tuesday: “To our knowledge, the next plan of the Tibetan independence forces is to organize suicide squads to launch violent attacks. They claimed that they fear neither bloodshed nor sacrifice.”

A senior official in the Tibetan government in exile in Dharamsala, India, immediately denied the Chinese accusations. “Tibetan exiles are 100 percent committed to nonviolence,” said the official, Prime Minister Samdhong Rinpoche. “But we fear that Chinese might masquerade as Tibetans and plan such attacks to give bad publicity to Tibetans.”       more ...

Beijing Steps Up Falun Gong Persecution Ahead of Olympics

Over 100 Falun Gong adherents reported tortured to death since January

By Caylan Ford
Epoch Times Staff
Apr 02, 2008

As the Chinese regime's violent repression continues in Tibet, another group claims they too are experiencing heightened persecution.

Representatives of the Falun Gong spiritual practice say that, since January of this year the Chinese regime has tortured over 100 Falun Gong adherents to death, mostly in reeducation-through-labour camps.

The New York-based Falun Dafa Information Center claims to have received reports from inside China of over 1,878 arrests of Falun Gong adherents since January. The Centre says that authorities in at least 29 Chinese provinces have been conducting door-to-door sweeps in search of Falun Gong practitioners or anyone in possession of Falun Gong-related books or materials.

According to reports relayed by Falun Gong inside China, the Public Security Bureau has been offering cash rewards to citizens who turn in Falun Gong adherents. In one city in Shandong province, authorities have announced a reward of up to 3,000 Yuan for information leading to the arrest of a Falun Gong practitioner.

Once detained, the Falun Gong adherents are sent without trial to reeducation-through-labour camps, where reports indicate they face torture and other forms of abuse.

The Falun Gong website Minghui.org, which receives and compiles accounts of persecution from inside China, has reported that 129 Falun Gong adherents were tortured to death by authorities between January 1st and March 20th, 2008. The website provided a list and case details for each individual reported to have been killed.           more ...

China confirms Xinjiang protests

By Michael Bristow
BBC News, Beijing
10:48 GMT, Wednesday, 2 April 2008 11:48 UK

China has admitted that protests took place in a restive western region last month, days after unrest in Tibet.

Protesters "caused a disturbance" in the market town of Hotan in China's Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, according to the local government.  But there are conflicting reports about what caused the incident and the number of people involved.  Officials say protesters wanted independence for Xinjiang, but other reports blamed local disputes.  Xinjiang is a mostly Muslim region, many of whose inhabitants would like to see greater autonomy from Beijing.

According to Hotan local government, the incident took place on 23 March in the town's bazaar.  "A small number of the 'three forces'... attempted to incite the masses and provoke an incident," a press release said. No one was injured.  The "three forces" is a term used by the Chinese government for separatists, terrorists and extremists.   The press release went on to say that the public security bureau and the police stopped the protesters, who, it said, wanted to split the motherland.        more ...

China makes 'suicide squad' claim

By Michael Bristow
BBC News, Beijing
13:10 GMT, Tuesday, 1 April 2008 14:10 UK

China claims that Tibetan "independence forces" are planning to launch suicide attacks as part of a wider uprising to establish an independent Tibet.  Public Security Ministry spokesman Wu Heping said these suicide squads "fear neither bloodshed nor sacrifice".  Mr Wu did not produce any evidence to back up the claims - but said China would release proof later.  The prime minister of the Tibetan government-in-exile, Samdhong Rinpoche, denied China's allegations.  Mr Wu claimed the wave of protests that erupted across Tibetan areas recently was part of a "Tibetan People's Uprising Movement" ahead of the Olympic Games.  He said police had recently discovered guns, ammunition, knives and explosives in the dormitories of Tibetan monks.

Mr Wu's comments mark a dramatic increase in the seriousness of the accusations against Tibetans and, by extension, the Dalai Lama, the head of Tibetan Buddhism.  "To our knowledge, the next plan of the Tibetan independence forces is to organise suicide squads to launch violent attacks," he said at a press conference.   He went on to say that the recent anti-Chinese demonstrations by Tibetans were part of a well-thought-out plan to split Tibet and China      more ...

Toronto Chinese Rally Turns Ugly—UPDATED With Video

Participants heckle Tibetans: 'Leave Canada.' Mayor's China trip questioned

By Jason Loftus
Epoch Times Toronto Staff
Mar 30, 2008

TORONTO—A rally that was billed as promoting "anti-violence" turned hostile on Saturday as flag-waving Chinese denounced Tibetans who they blamed for the recent turmoil in Tibet in which 100 are said to have died.  Close to 1000 Chinese were in Toronto's Dundas Square for the afternoon event, many of them students.

"Dalai Lama die there!" some Chinese shouted at a group of Tibetans who had gathered across the street from the square to protest. "Leave Canada!" others urged.

Tibetans say the Chinese rally, which began orderly, was designed to incite hate against them.  The event was promoted in Chinese-language press as a rally to tell the "truth" about Tibet and "safeguard the reunification of the motherland."

Several major Chinese-language media outlets in Canada have parroted the Chinese communist regime's line on Tibet, blaming the turmoil on the Dalai Lama and his followers and fanning a nationalist animosity toward Tibetans.     more ...

Photos provide the real picture on Tibet violence

Since the protests began, the Chinese government has consistently denied the high death tolls in Tibet. Exile groups claim as many as 100 people have died, many of them shot. The Chinese government claims only 16 have died, and they have denied shooting anyone.
Claims from both sides are difficult to verify because reporters have been expelled from the area.       See the wounded and killed people of Tibet in photos more...

China puts out its Tibet version

CNN News
updated 3:55 a.m. EDT, Sun March 23, 2008

CHENGDU, China (AP) -- With restive Tibetan areas swarming with troops and closed to scrutiny from the outside world, China's government has turned up efforts to put its own version of the unrest before the international public.

Information barely trickled out of the Tibetan capital Lhasa and other far-flung Tibetan communities, where foreign media were banned and thousands of troops dispatched to quell the most widespread demonstrations against Chinese rule in nearly five decades.

The Chinese government was attempting to fill the information vacuum with its own message, saying Sunday through official media that the restive areas were under control.

The government has also disseminated footage of Tibetan protesters attacking Chinese and accusations of biased reporting by Western media via TV, the Internet, e-mail and YouTube, which is blocked in China. The media barrage underscored that the government campaign is moving into a new phase of damage control ahead of the much-anticipated Beijing Olympics in August.

On Sunday, Communist Party newspapers accused the Dalai Lama of orchestrating the riots in Tibet to try to mar the Olympics and overthrow the area's communist leaders. It was China's latest attempt to demonize the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader in the eyes of the Chinese public, which is strongly supportive of the Olympics. Video Watch demonstrators in India voice support for the Dalai Lama »

"The Beijing Olympics are eagerly awaited by the people of the whole world, but the Dalai clique is scheming to take the Beijing Olympics hostage to force the Chinese government to make concessions to Tibet independence," the People's Daily said.

While China's rigorous policing of the Internet is far from foolproof, its official Internet is pervasive and there is no easy access to an alternative in the country. The difficulty of confirming what is going on inside Tibet may also be hindering a stronger world reaction.

"They've successfully managed the messages available to the average Chinese citizen, and this has fueled broad public support for a heavy-handed approach to controlling unrest," said David Bandurski, a Hong Kong University expert on Chinese media. "There will be no nuances to Tibet coverage."       more ...

China Cuts Off Access to Western News Sites

NPR
Weekend Edition Saturday, March 22, 2008 ·

Over the past week of uprisings in Tibet, the Chinese government has cut access to Western media websites to keep the Chinese people from finding out how serious the crisis has been. more ...

China shows its brutal side in Tibet

Edmonton Sun[Saturday, March 22, 2008 18:02]

Paramilitary police march in a street in Zhongdian, in a Tibetan area known as Shangri-La, in Yunnan province Saturday March 22, 2008. Thousands of troops have moved into Tibetan areas outside Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR) following last week's anti-government riots in Tibet's capital, Lhasa. (AP Photo/Greg Baker)
Paramilitary police march in a street in Zhongdian, in a Tibetan area known as Shangri-La, in Yunnan province Saturday March 22, 2008. Thousands of troops have moved into Tibetan areas outside Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR) following last week's anti-government riots in Tibet's capital, Lhasa. (AP Photo/Greg Baker)
The authoritarian crackdown by the Chinese state on the people of Tibet is in full swing. Since foreigners and journalists are now banned from the country and Tibetans can be jailed for speaking to foreign media, there's little anyone outside China can do now to influence events. The People's Liberation Army will do what it does, and all expressions of public dissent in Tibet will be ruthlessly crushed -- again.

The greater question is what do the rest of us do next. Will we turn a blind eye, as we have in the past?

China's repression in Tibet is not a theory, or a political position. It is a fact, backed up by numerous independent accounts. In 1950 China invaded and took over Tibet by force. Since then China has deliberately flooded the country with ethnic Han Chinese immigrants, in effect making Tibetans a minority in their own land. Tibet's Buddhist monks, the country's traditional spiritual and temporal leaders, have been either repressed or co-opted by Beijing.       more ...

China posts wanted list for Tibet

BBC News
Last Updated: Saturday, 22 March 2008, 05:41 GMT

There has been a steady security build-up in Tibetan areas
Chinese authorities have issued a list of 21 people wanted for their alleged role in anti-China riots in the Tibetan city of Lhasa last week.  Photos of the suspects were posted on the internet as China continued the crackdown that followed the unrest.  China has said that 19 people were killed in the Lhasa riots, which later spread to other Tibetan areas.  But Tibetan exiles say that nearly 100 have been killed by the Chinese security forces.

The official People's Daily newspaper said on Saturday that those responsible should be severely punished.  "China must resolutely crush the conspiracy of sabotage and smash 'Tibet independence forces'," the paper said in an editorial.     more ...

China accuses Dalai Lama of taking Olympics "hostage"

Reuters
Sat Mar 22, 2008 11:55pm EDT
By Chris Buckley

BEIJING (Reuters) - China has accused the Dalai Lama of planning bloodshed in Tibet and colluding with Uighur terrorists in Xinjiang as it pushes a security and propaganda drive to stifle anti-Chinese unrest in its remote west.

Anti-government protests by Buddhist monks erupted in Tibet's capital, Lhasa, from March 10 and five days later anti-Chinese rioting shook the city, killing a policeman and 18 innocent civilians, burnt or hacked to death, authorities have said.

Protests then flared in nearby provinces with large ethnic Tibetan populations, leaving at least several more people dead.

Tibet's exiled Buddhist leader, the Dalai Lama, has criticized the violence and said he wants talks with China to negotiate autonomy, but not outright independence, for his homeland, which was occupied by Chinese troops from 1950.

But as Beijing extinguishes unrest in Tibetan areas by pouring in troops, it is also intensifying a propaganda campaign to tell its citizens and the rest of the world that the Dalai Lama, not failings in government policy, is to blame.

The ruling Chinese Communist Party's official newspaper, the People's Daily, said on Sunday that the Dalai -- winner of the 1989 Nobel Peace Prize -- had never abandoned violence since fleeing China in 1959, after a failed revolt against Beijing.

"This incident again demonstrates that the so-called 'peaceful non-violence' of the Dalai clique is an outright lie from start to end," the paper stated.     more ...

On Tibet Frontlines, Protestors 'Shot Like Dogs'

ABC News
By NICK SCHIFRIN
DHARAMSALA, India, March 17, 2008

The Chinese military is shooting Tibetan demonstrators "like dogs," a Tibetan exile group said Monday, firing "indiscriminately" intro
groups of people protesting Chinese rule.

The accusation was leveled by the Tibetan Center for Human Rights and Democracy, a group run by exiled Tibetans in Dharamsala, India, home to the Dalai Lama. Exile groups in India receive some of the few reports from inside Tibet and have provided some of the only reporting from there since last Monday, when the most significant Tibetan protests in 20 years began.

"People have been saying they're shooting our people like dogs," Tenzin Norgay, the spokesman for the Tibetan Center for Human Rights and Democracy, told ABC News, citing his sources inside Tibet. He spoke just a few hours after a deadline set by the Chinese government expired for the protestors to stop or face a crackdown. The protests, he says, continued, and so did the retaliation.   more ...

Photo Report: A Glance at Tibet on March 14

By Han Xinxin
Epoch Times Staff
Mar 22, 2008

LHASA—On March 21, the situation in Lhasa remained tense as the Chinese communist regime continues to flood Lhasa with various armed forces. The regime plans to strengthen its martial law as it anticipates more uprising from the Tibetans in Lhasa on March 24-26.

A policeman noticed a reporter photographing, and forcefully deleted all photographs before allowing the reporter to leave. The following photos were taken on March 14 of the armed suppression in Lhasa, before armed forces opened fire.

These photos clearly document the Chinese communist regime's army, police military vehicles, and tank entering and stationing in Lhasa. Some armed forces personnel, dressed in civilian clothing with bulletproof vests, held submachine guns, while other armed forces and police attempt to suppress the crowd.       more ...

Tibetan exiles reel at images of their dead

Matt Wade, Dharamsala
March 21, 2008

TIBETANS in exile in India have gathered outside the monastery and temple complex in Dharamsala that is home to the Dalai Lama each day since protests started in Tibet.

Information from inside Tibet has been posted regularly at the entrance to the complex known as the Tsuglagkhang, and there is always a crowd of people reading the notices.   But it has been getting harder to look at the material being posted on the wall.  For the past few days, grim colour photos of the disfigured bodies of Tibetan protesters killed in Tibet have appeared.

They are gruesome images of bodies in pools of blood. Some appear to have gunshot wounds, conflicting with Chinese claims that no live ammunition has been used on protesters. Yesterday, one young monk studied the photos with an ashen face. Eventually he turned away and wiped tears from his eyes with his maroon tunic. He walked slowly back into the monastery.    more ...

Tibet uprising cracks the face of modern China

Mary-Anne Toy, Songpan, Sichuan Province
March 21, 2008
Page 1 of 3 | Single page

"LOVE your country, love your religion, together let's build a harmonious society," reads the banner fluttering in the spring sunshine at the 400-year-old Tibetan monastery in remote Sichuan province.

The Communist Party slogan, intended to reassure people that religion can co-exist with communism, rang hollow this week as Beijing mobilised its formidable security forces to contain the worst outbreak of Tibetan protests against Chinese rule in two decades.

This tiny Sichuan monastery seems at first untouched by the crisis that escalated from peaceful protests by 400 monks in the Tibetan capital Lhasa last Monday into riots involving thousands of disaffected Tibetans that gutted hundreds of Han Chinese businesses before spreading like a bushfire to at least three neighbouring Chinese provinces with large Tibetan communities.      more ...

Chinese Spectre of Evil Is Roaming -- China handles Tibet protests in Greece, Nepal/Spero News

Micky Wong
Date: Sat, 15 Mar 2008 09:49:29 -0400
Local: Sat, Mar 15 2008 9:49 am

China handles Tibet protests in Greece, Nepal/Spero News

Observers report Chinese embassy staff were directing Nepal's handling  of protests on Tibet -- BBC film crew caught Chinese staff filming  protesters in Greece

Friday, March 14, 2008
Spero News  http://www.speroforum.com/site/article_images/sampleKTM_protest_10Mar08_05.jpg

Two Chinese officials photographed observing the Kathmandu police. One  of the officials spat on the American who took this photo and the  camera.  The Chinese officials yelled in English to the Nepalese police  to apprehend the American and take the camera away, which the Nepalese  police did not act upon. ICT

Chinese embassy officials in Kathmandu on March 10 with the handling of  clashes between Nepalese police and Tibetans carrying out demonstrations  for an important Tibetan anniversary, March 10 National Uprising Day.  In Greece, too, Chinese officials filmed Tibetan activists and were  caught on camera attempting to impede a peaceful protest by Tibetans  linked to the Olympics in Olympia, ancient site of the first Olympics.      more...

Olympics clean up Chinese style: Inside Beijing's shocking death camp for cats

Daily Mail
By SIMON PERRY - More by this author » Last updated at 00:55am on 9th March 2008

Thousands of pet cats in Beijing are being abandoned by their owners and sent to die in secretive government pounds as China mounts an aggressive drive to clean up the capital in preparation for the Olympic Games.  Hundreds of cats a day are being rounded and crammed into cages so small they cannot even turn around.  Then they are trucked to what animal welfare groups describe as death camps on the edges of the city.

The cull comes in the wake of a government campaign warning of the diseases cats carry and ordering residents to help clear the streets of them.   Cat owners, terrified by the disease warning, are dumping their pets in the streets to be picked up by special collection teams.   Paranoia is so intense that six stray cats -including two pregnant females - were beaten to death with sticks by teachers at a Beijing kindergarten, who feared they might pass illnesses to the children.

China's leaders are convinced that animals pose a serious urban health risk and may have contributed to the outbreak of SARS - a deadly respiratory virus - in 2003.   But the crackdown on cats is seen by animal campaigners as just one of a number of extreme measures being taken by communist leaders to ensure that its capital appears clean, green and welcoming during the Olympics.   more ...

Pollution turns Chinese river red

Water supplies to about 200,000 people in central China have been contaminated by pollution, which has turned branches of a major river system red.

BBC News
Last Updated: Wednesday, 27 February 2008, 11:12 GMT

At least three tributaries of the Han river - a branch of the Yangtze - have been affected.  State media reported high levels of chemicals in the water.  China is increasingly concerned about its environment. A recent ban on plastic bags has led to the country's largest bag factory shutting down.  The Xinglong, Tianguan and Dongjing rivers were all affected by the pollution, according to the state news agency Xinhua.  

A chemical spill is thought be the cause, but the source has not yet been identified and an investigation has been launched.  Gao Qijin, a water company official in Xinguo, Jianli County, told Xinhua that the water in the Dongjing river had become red with large amounts of bubbles.     more ...

China Farmland Privatisation Protests Set to Grow

Reuters - Feb 11, 2008

BEIJING—Chinese activists pushing for private ownership of farms are preparing for spreading protests to "reclaim" disputed land, intensifying a battle between state control and emboldened farmers.

China's ruling Communist Party keeps farmland under village "collective" ownership, effectively the grip of state officials. Farmers hold usage rights under 30-year leases and only the government can approve converting farmland for factories and urban housing.

But in a volley of protests and petitions in late 2007, farmers in three provinces sought to "reclaim" land lost to development and issued petitions demanding private ownership as a bulwark against corrupt confiscations and meagre compensation.

Wary of protests spreading, the government recently sentenced two organizers—Yu Changwu and Wang Guilin—in the northeast province of Heilongjiang to "labour re-education" (slave-labour prison camps) and temporarily detained farmers in northwest province of Shaanxi, said Beijing-based activists backing the campaigns.       more ...

Olympians forced to sign no-criticism-of-China contract

If competitors agree to clause but then speak their mind, they'll be sent packing

worldnetdaily.com
Posted: February 10, 2008
12:30 am Eastern

British athletes who want to compete in the summer Olympics will be required to sign a contract promising not to make statements critical of the communist regime's human rights record or they will not be permitted to travel to China, according to a 32-page document prepared by the British Olympic Association.

"There are all sorts of organizations who would like athletes to use the Olympic Games as a vehicle to publicize their causes," Simon Clegg, BOA's chief executive, told the London Daily Mail.

"I don't believe that is in the interest of the team performance. As a team we are ambassadors of the country and we have to conform to an appropriate code of conduct."

While this is the first time the clause prohibiting any kind of political statement about the hosting country has been included in the BOA contract, the British team is not alone. New Zealand and Belgium also make the same requirement of those who qualify to compete in Beijing.         more ...

No Sanctuary For House Churches in China

By Han Qing
The Epoch Times Feb 09, 2008

In 2005, CAA released its first annual report about the situation of religions in China to expose the mainland Chinese regime's persecution of house churches. Bob Fu, president of CAA, told the Epoch Times that because of incomplete statistics, the 2007 numbers represents only show a small portion of those who are persecuted by the Chinese regime.

Even with incomplete data, the statistics show a clear trend of increasing persecution against family churches.

According to the CAA report, persecution of house churches were documented in at least 18 provinces and one direct municipality. There were 60 cases in 2007, which is a 30 percent increase since 2006. The number of victims in 2007 increased by over 18 percent, to 788 people. In addition to the record-high number of 17 cases of physical abuse, the number of people arrested rose to 693.

Furthermore, at least 84 foreign missionaries were arrested, interrogated, deported or received other forms of persecution. The severity of persecution against house churches has gone up a dramatic 68.6 percent since 2006.     more ...

Japan scare over China dumplings

BBC News - Last Updated: Thursday, 31 January 2008, 11:12 GMT

A packet of the Chinese-made dumplings
People said they fell ill and vomited after eating the dumplings

Dozens of Japanese people say they have fallen ill after eating Chinese-made dumplings, prompting Tokyo officials to launch an inquiry.  The frozen dumplings, known as gyoza in Japan, were made by Tianyang Food in China's Hebei province.  Japanese officials said they contained traces of pesticide, probably added in production or packaging in China.  China said no traces of pesticide had been found in pre-export inspections, but ordered a halt to production.

The issue has triggered intensive media coverage in Japan and sparked public alarm.  Leaders held an emergency cabinet meeting to discuss the problem.  The problems emerged on Wednesday, when 10 people were reported to have fallen ill from the dumplings - thin dough packets containing ground meat and vegetables which are then fried.

A five-year-old girl was in a serious condition in hospital, reports said.  By late Thursday there were unconfirmed reports of dozens of cases.  The Japanese distributor, JT Foods, has recalled the dumplings and other products made by the same company.    more ...

China activist formally arrested

By Michael Bristow
BBC News, Beijing
Last Updated: Friday, 1 February 2008, 05:43 GMT

A prominent Chinese activist has been formally arrested more than a month after being taken into custody.  Hu Jia, who publicises human rights abuses across China, has been accused of inciting subversion of state power.  Campaigners say his arrest shows that China is not keeping its promise to improve human rights ahead of this year's Beijing Olympic Games.  But the government says China is a country ruled by laws, and Hu Jia will be dealt with according to the law.

Two days after Christmas, about 30 security officers burst into Hu Jia's flat and took him away.  Officials were apparently tired of his efforts to support human rights cases across the country.  He had become a kind of one-man clearing house for information, passing it on to journalists, organisations and foreign embassies.  His wife Zeng Jinyan, also a prominent activist, has been put under house arrest with the couple's two-month-old baby.  The BBC was not allowed to visit her when we went to the couple's flat on the outskirts of Beijing last month.     more ...

Man Beaten to Death for Filming City Administrators' Brutality

By Feng Yiran
Epoch Times Staff
Jan 12, 2008

On January 7, a man was beaten to death by a group of city administrators* for filming their violent enforcement of an expired contract in Wanba Village in central China's Tianmen City, Hubei Province.

According to the Chutian Metropolitan, Mr Wei Wenhua, a construction company president, was driving through Wanba Village. His attention was caught by a violent confrontation between local villagers and a group of city administrators. He stopped his car and started to film the scene on his mobile phone. He was seen by the administrators and they then severely beat him up.

The Chutain Metropolitan reported that a villager on the scene told them that although Mr. Wei handed over his phone, the beating did not stop.

Five minutes later, Wei passed out on the ground. One of the administrators took him to a hospital, but Wei was declared dead on arrival.

The violent confrontation occurred at a landfill that is situated next to the villagers' homes. According to a villager named Li, two years ago, a government department negotiated with the village to use the parcel of land as a landfill.     more ...

China's trade surplus jumps 48%

BBC News
Last Updated: Friday, 11 January 2008, 06:59 GMT

China's trade surplus soared 48% in 2007 to a record high as its export-led economic boom continued, government figures have shown.  The gap between what China exports and imports expanded to $262.2bn (£134bn) last year.  The latest big annual rise in the surplus may increase pressure on China to allow the yuan to rise in value.  The US in particular accuses China of keeping the yuan undervalued to keep Chinese exports cheap.      more ...

China Limits Providers of Internet Video

Associated Press
By MIN LEE – 06:30 01/03/2007

HONG KONG (AP) — China has decided to restrict the broadcasting of Internet videos — including those posted on video-sharing Web sites — to sites run by state-controlled companies and require providers to report questionable content to the government.

It wasn't immediately clear how the new rules would affect YouTube and other providers of Internet video that host Web sites available in China but are based in other countries.

The new regulations, which take effect Jan. 31, were approved by both the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television and the Ministry of Information Industry and were described on their Web sites Tuesday.

Under the new policy, Web sites that provide video programming or allow users to upload video must obtain government permits and applicants must be either state-owned or state-controlled companies.       more ...

Reporters in China still face problems

The Age
January 1, 2008 - 8:17AM

Foreign journalists working in China face continued harassment despite new reporting rules brought in for the Olympic Games, a report by the Beijing-based Foreign Correspondents Club of China say.

China relaxed restrictions on foreign journalists at the beginning of the year, exempting them from having to apply for permission to travel and conduct interviews.

The change was part of the country's pledge to increase media freedom - a promise that helped Beijing win the honour of hosting the 2008 Olympics.

But the FCCC said it received more than 180 reports of interference in journalists' work in 2007, including beatings and intimidation by local plain clothes thugs in Beijing and other places such as central Hubei province.

Sensitive areas such as China's western Xinjiang province, home to China's Uygur minority, and Tibet, still remain difficult places to work in due to official obstruction and harassment, the FCCC said.    more ...